For any given Google search, an astonishing 42 percent of all search engine users click the first listing that appears. For the second listing, that number is just eight percent—and it only drops off after that. What does that mean for small business owners, zealous to succeed in local SEO marketing? It means that, if you own a maid service in Augusta, Georgia, you need to make sure your company’s listing is one of the very first to appear for pertinent search inquiries—or else, you’re losing leads by the droves to your more SEO-savvy competitors!

SEO, or search engine optimization, is still fairly new territory for some business owners, and local SEO is particularly challenging. At its most basic level, though, local SEO marketing is simply a matter of optimizing your online presence to reach out to as many local customers as possible. There are several ways to do this, including the six tips listed below.

#1 Have an SEO-Driven Site for Every Location

How many locations does your business have? If you have an advertising agency or a plumbing company, you may just have one central office; if you are the owner of restaurants or retail stores, however, you may have multiple locations. For the purposes of local SEO marketing, it is critical to have a separate website for every physical location you have—each one customized with geospecific keywords. For local SEO marketing, having a single online hub will not suffice for companies with various locations.

#2 Build Local Links

If you know much about SEO, you know that “link building” is a key concept. For businesses doing local SEO marketing, of course, local link building is especially integral. That is to say, you need to win backlinks to your site from directories, blogs, or publications that are known to be authoritative within your geographic area. Submitting to directories, like online yellow pages listings, is one approach. Also reach out to local newspapers, your local Chamber of Commerce, and any professional organizations within your city or town. Getting links from such authoritative sources can go a long way. BUT don’t cheat or overdo it because Google will kick you @%&$

#3 Optimize for Video

Video can be a powerful tool in any local SEO marketing campaign. Upload videos to Google, but before they go public, make sure they are optimized to provide local value. Including your company phone number in the title or meta description of a video is not only a great way to boost local SEO, but it also allows mobile users to call your company directly from the search engine results page.

#4 Bring in Online Reviews

Reviews on Google, Yelp, and other user-generated review sites are powerful components in the SEO process; the more reviews you get, the better your local visibility will be. You can’t force people to leave you reviews, but you can ask them to—and your faithful customers and clients will likely take you up on it. Make sure your review profiles are clearly linked from your main company website.

#5 Use Press Releases

Press releases can prove mightily helpful in your local SEO marketing endeavors, generating local buzz and ranking well in local news searches. Make sure that any press release you send out is genuinely newsworthy—a new product launch, or something similar. Also make sure that your press releases include geospecific keywords in the title.

#6 Use Twitter Search

Finally, remember that local SEO marketing is not just a matter of optimizing your site and winning links, but also of directly connecting with local customers and clients. Twitter is a great resource for doing exactly that. Using Twitter’s search function, you can seek out tweets from local consumers seeking information about your industry or niche; for example, a quick search for “Charlotte plumbing,” or “Charlotte toilet repair,” will yield local Charlotte residents who are asking questions about local plumbing services. A quick tweet to these folks may be all it takes to get them to click over to your website.

For business owners, of course, local SEO marketing is not really a matter of choice any longer; if you want to bring traffic to your website and through the doors of your business, you need to make your online presence as visible and as attractive as possible.

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Video marketing for business purposes is critical in today’s increasingly content-centered, video-driven digital landscape—and if you doubt it, simply consider a few of the following facts. A product is 144 percent more likely to sell if it has an accompanying product video; consumers who watch a video are 85 percent times more likely to make a purchase, right then and there, than whose who do not watch product videos. As such, it is vital to not only engage in video marketing, but to optimize your videos to ensure they are seen by as many potential clients and customers as possible.

Case Studies from Endless Leadz

This may sound easier said than done—but video marketing for business owners is far from an uphill battle or a lost cause. The marketing team at Endless Leadz has generated incredible success through video marketing. A few examples:

• Conducting a quick search for “free Facebook ads” will take you directly to an Endless Leadz video, one that has amassed 1 billion hits and counting!
•  We have also won the #1 Google search engine ranking for “private school Budapest.”
• Likewise, we have won search engine prominence for a client under the Google search term “epoxy flooring Ottawa.”

Surveying these Google rankings shows that it is indeed possible to win search engine visibility through strategic video marketing. Not only that, but these videos also reveal a few important tips and techniques that are important for video marketing for business.

Video Marketing and Local SEO

The first takeaway from these successful online video marketing endeavors is that video is not only great for general SEO, but for local SEO, as well. That’s why the geo-specific signifiers in these videos—mentions of Budapest and Ottawa—are so important. These companies are both trying to bring in local customers, so including these city names in the titles and descriptions of these videos is a must. That’s an important tip for any business seeking to capitalize on video marketing.

Actionable Content Imperative

Take a moment to check out the “free Facebook ads” video. It includes a number of statistics and compelling figures, all displayed in graph form. This is a great example of the kind of content that your video marketing endeavors should focus on—content that educated and informs, or else suggests specific plans of action. The bottom line is that your marketing videos should provide viewers with some steps they can take, right here and now, to put the content of your video into practice.

Calls to Action are Critical

Another thing you might notice in the “free Facebook ads” video is that it includes a clear call to action. The video ends with a strong admonition to call EndlezzLeadz.com today, and to inquire about Facebook ad services. A call to action is a crucial component in any sales copy, and that includes video content; you might also consider including a brief call to action in the written description of your video, as well as a link to your website or to a landing page.

Take Advantage of Different Channels

Another thing to notice: The videos in our three cases studies are posted to an array of sites and channels, including not just YouTube but also DailyMotion. There is some real merit to varying the online video platforms you use; YouTube may be the most popular, but you can cover more bases and reach more potential clients by spreading your content across a few different channels. Also worth noting is the pending launch of paid video channels on YouTube, which will provide some great opportunities for video marketing for business owners.

Video Marketing Can be Simple

A final point to make about the videos noted here is that, while all three look good and are professionally-done, none of them are particularly long, complicated, or expensive. In fact, all three of them are really as simple as business owners speaking to the camera, sharing their insights and their expertise. This is a key consideration for those interested in video marketing for business purposes: You don’t need a fancy film studio or an expensive camera crew—all you need is your own industry know-how and a desire to connect with viewers.

Don’t let any SEO company fool you!

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#1 Perform On-Site Local SEO Optimization

The first step is to take some keywords and put them to work for you. Those who need to obtain solid keywords can do so by using the Google AdWords Keyword tool, seeking high-volume, geo-specific keywords. It is important to let the search engine bots know exactly which geographic areas you are targeting by inserting some geo-specific keywords into your content. In particular, include them in your meta titles and descriptions.

Additionally, make sure you phone number appears on every page of your site. Search engines use phone numbers to provide local search rankings. Because search engines cannot crawl and index images, you need to make sure the phone number appears as text, not as a graphic.

Finally, embed a map; you can do this by entering your business address on Google Maps, then using the HTML code provided. This helps visitors—and the search engines—to find your company.

#2 Sign Up for Google Places

The single best thing you can do, as far as local SEO optimization is concerned, is to get on Google Places. Adding or claiming your business is easy; optimizing your Google Places profile is a bit harder. For starters, make sure that you fill out all the descriptive fields provided, using your keywords but also making sure your descriptions read well and are genuinely informative to potential customers and clients. Include some high-quality images. Make sure to keep the contact information for your business up-to-date.

#3 Use Foursquare

In recent months, Foursquare has become a significant presence in local search and discovery. It is significant enough that no local business can afford to neglect it. Sign up for a Foursquare page, and then fill out all of the profile information, just as you did on Google Places. Encourage check-ins, perhaps even offering special discounts or coupons to those who check in for the first time, to big parties that check in together, to the first clients to check in on a given day, and so on.

#4 Solicit Reviews

Online review sites are some of the most SEO-driven and consumer-oriented sites on the Web, which means that they provide businesses with great opportunities to get found by local consumers. The more online reviews your company can amass, then, the more visible your online presence will be. Of course, there is no way to force people to review your company, but giving your customers a little push can go a long way. Make sure links to your online review profiles are found on your company site and on your social media pages. Even leave links to your review profiles in your e-mail signature, on invoices and receipts, and on flyers or brochures that you distribute.

#5 Generate Fresh Content

Search engines favor sites that receive regular content updates, which means that if your website is entirely static—unchanging from month to month—then it’s not going to do a very good job of bringing in local customers. A great way to generate regular content is through a company blog, of course, though you will want to make sure the blog is hosted on your main company URL, not as a separate domain.

#6 Don’t Forget Mobile

Statistics indicate that nearly 65 percent of all local searches are conducted from smartphones and mobile devices. What this means is that local SEO optimization and mobile optimization really go hand in hand. Make sure your website performs well on mobile devices, and if it doesn’t, make it a priority to work with your design company to make your site more mobile-friendly.

Local SEO optimization is not something that companies can neglect, not if they wish to connect with actual, local customers—to get clients coming through the doors and spending money. These local SEO optimization techniques can provide a foundation for a solid local search campaign.

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Content marketing is all the rage these days, with more and more companies using content creation and social media to establish themselves as brands of authority and esteem. It is important to realize, however, that content marketing is not just about the business’ perception or the business owner’s ego; if your company is not seeing measurable sales benefits, then your content marketing strategies need some work! What follows are six simple ways to increase sales through content marketing.

Guest Blogging as a Two-Way Street

There are several ways to increase sales through blogging. In recent years, guest blogging has arisen as a powerful component of SEO and online reputation management; by posting guest posts to relevant, authoritative blogs, companies are able to establish their own expertise and know-how. What many companies neglect is the reality that guest blogging is a two-way street—and that inviting other reputable industry titans to write for your company blog can yield surprising benefits.

This is one of the most underutilized ways to increase sales, yet it works quite well. Surveys show that more than 60 percent of all consumers say they are much more likely to buy a product or service if they first read educational, informative content on the company’s website or blog. There is no rule saying that this content must be written by you or your marketing team members, though—and in fact, inviting other industry leaders to contribute to your blog shows that your company is, in fact, held in high esteem within its field. This is a stellar way to build consumer confidence and trust.

Different Boards for Different Content

Another tip is to take advantage of the opportunities Pinterest afford for creating different boards with different themes. Create one board for your company blog posts, another for e-books and white papers, and so on. Segmenting your content in this way may seem illogical at first, but it is a great way of drawing attention to the sheer range of information that you provide. Plus, many users who are not necessarily regular blog subscribers will still have an easy way to keep tabs on your company blog.

Questions on Quora

Companies looking for ways to increase sales through social marketing will want to make certain that they are making good use of Quora. Head there every week or two and search for questions related to your industry or niche—and then answer them, not in a promotional way but in a way that shows off your own expertise within your field. Quora’s user base grew by a staggering 37,000 percent last year, and it stands poised to continue expanding—making it a platform companies cannot afford to neglect!

Setting Off Alerts

One great strategy for getting your name out there, and attracting hot leads from those actively seeking assistance in your field, is to try to set off Google and Bing Alerts. The best way to do this is to use your company website or blog to report news and trends within your industry. By using the right keywords, you can set off alerts for those using search engines to monitor the industry.

Repurpose Your Content

Every time you create a presentation or give a speech, you should be in the habit of spinning that content into a blog entry—or perhaps even a series of blog entries. This may seem, at first, like additional work, but it is actually a smart and efficiency-boosting way to generate substantive content. You’ve already done the research needed to put the presentation together, after all—so why not put it to use on your blog?

Landing Pages

Those looking for ways to increase sales through content marketing will also want to make sure they are integrating content with landing pages. Say that you have a plumbing company, and you write a blog entry or send out a press release about green plumbing trends. Use those pieces of content to drive traffic to a page set up about your green plumbing services—not just to your main company homepage, or to a more generic services page.

Blogs and social media sites reach close to 90 percent of all U.S. consumers—and that number is only growing all the time. As such, these tools present plenty of ways to increase sales. The key is simply to approach them strategically.

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1) Complete Your Profiles

When you visit your LinkedIn profile, you should see a status bar, telling you how “complete” your account is. If you do not have 100 percent profile completeness for your LinkedIn profile, then finishing your profile optimization should be priority #1. Your LinkedIn profile will likely be one of the top five search engine results when your company is Googled, so making sure you have it completely up-to-date with accurate information is an essential part of your branding.

A related LinkedIn marketing strategy is to ensure that you, and all of your employees, have your individual profiles connected to the corporate one. Again, this is all about branding, and about gaining as much exposure for your company as you can. Connecting your company page to as many individuals and professional networks as possible only helps you to establish a respected online brand.

2) Join Groups

Of course, to develop a really healthy LinkedIn marketing strategy, you need to recognize that LinkedIn is not just about brand enhancement; it is actually a tremendously effective tool for lead generation. Just how effective is it? LinkedIn is 277 percent more effective for lead generation than Facebook is, some studies show!

A great way to tap into that lead generation potential is to join some professional groups. Doing so extends your reach and your sphere of influence, but it is important that you make every effort to join groups beyond the obvious ones. If you are a financial planner, for example, you shouldn’t just join other financial planning groups; join groups of small business owners, lawyers, and other professionals, as well, because they are the ones who may need financial planning services.

3) Create Groups

In addition to joining groups, you, as a business owner, can also create your own group. This is a great way for establishing your expertise. Use your group to answer frequently asked questions, to share daily “tips” related to your industry, and to opine on pertinent, industry-specific headlines. This is an invaluable way to market directly to a targeted group that is interested in your niche.

4) Use LinkedIn Direct Ads

LinkedIn is not necessarily a social network that users flock to for fun an frivolity; when on LinkedIn, most users have professional networking in mind, which means that it is a good place to find other professionals seeking to partner or to make use of your company’s services. You can attract some of these “hot” leads to your company site by using LinkedIn Direct Ads, which function in a manner very similar to Google AdWords. Particularly important: Make sure that these ads send users directly to a landing page, not simply to your home page!

5) Use LinkedIn for Inbound Marketing

Businesses can also make their LinkedIn marketing strategy an inbound one, using the social platform to share compelling information that establishes industry authority and repute. Whether it’s an article, a company blog post, a video, or a webinar, using LinkedIn to share educational content is a great way to establish your brand and to send traffic to your website. Make sure to track the clicks and shares that your content gets, and to revise your strategies accordingly; if you get more shares on videos than on blog entries, then double up on the videos that you share.

6) Use LinkedIn to Research Leads

When you do get new leads, turn to LinkedIn to do a bit of research. Check out the LinkedIn profile of your most recent lead, and find out more about that lead’s industry, position, or objectives. Having this kind of information can prove useful as you nurture your lead; you can customize your offers using information gleaned about the prospect in question—one final LinkedIn marketing strategy that no business should neglect!

For more information of effective inbound marketing techniques click on the image below

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Organic Lead Generation

Organic website traffic refers to any online visitors that you get through means other than paid ads. If a lead stumbles onto your website through your company’s Facebook presence, that’s organic lead generation. If a lead finds your landing page or corporate blog in a Google search inquiry, that too is organic lead generation.

Of course, what business owners truly want to know is how to increase sales for a company through organic Web traffic; there are six basic strategies to keep in mind:

1. First, start a company blog. Use a well-planned keyword strategy, and monitor the ranks for each keyword, making sure that you’re always focusing your efforts on terms that online users are actually, actively searching for.
2. Make sure that your content is easy to share. Facebook sharing buttons, “Pin-It” buttons, Twitter and Google+ sharing functions—all of these should be staples on all of your blog entries and company landing pages.
3. Those wondering how to increase sales for a company through organic means will want to make sure to engage with all of those who share their content, reaching out to them directly, thanking them, and inviting them to peruse further content. Of course, this makes social media monitoring tools invaluable!
4. Press releases, announcing newsworthy events in the life of your company—new product launches, new hires, corporate expansions—are ideal for generating buzz.
5. Article marketing, meanwhile, is an antiquated form of online marketing that companies are better off avoiding; putting articles in cheap directories and “e-zines” will actually incur Google penalties!
6. Finally, ensure that there is a call to action at the bottom of all of your content, helping to guide leads downward through the sales funnel.

Paid Lead Generation

Business owners wondering how to increase sales for a company will also wish to think seriously about some methods of paid lead generation and traffic-creation. While buying traffic in bulk is not advised, buying visible and effective online ads can often work wonders. A few strategies to consider include:

1. Buying ad space on YouTube puts your brand out there in front of some one billion users per month!
2. Speaking of YouTube: Companies that have invested in video marketing can take their campaigns a step further by visiting Virool.com, which promotes YouTube videos and brings in serious traffic.
3. Cheap banner ads still work wonders; SiteScout.com is a great place to get them. The site is made for small business owners, and provides easy and quick ways to create and manage banner ad campaigns in real time.
4. Google Adwords is an avenue that many business owners consider, as they wonder how to increase sales for a company through paid means—and while AdWords is undeniably effective, it can also prove pricey. That does not make it a bad option, but business owners are prudent to hold off on AdWords until they have tried some of the other strategies listed here.
5. A final tip for companies using these strategies is to make sure that paid ads point not to general pages, but rather to specific landing pages—which better equips the business owner for capturing these precious leads.

Which is Better?

So which of these two methodologies is better? Neither is necessarily any better than the other, and in fact there are many rewards that come from using both organic and paid traffic-generating and sales-boosting strategies in tandem. No matter which method your company uses, it is important to remember that your job does not end when you draw traffic to your website. You then need to capture and nurture those leads, following up with each individual prospect and making customized offers for those at the top, middle, and bottom of the sales funnel. That, in the end, is how to increase sales for a company!

Are you getting overwhelmed with ”marketing stuff”? You are not alone!

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That’s why it is so pivotal for businesses and brands to increase website traffic however they can. The question is, how is it done?

1) Start with Video Marketing

If you want to get your website link in front of people’s eyes, you need to start with video marketing. YouTube alone has four billion daily views, so taking advantage of video marketing is a prime way to generate buzz and increase website traffic. When you design marketing videos, then, don’t just stick them on your website; make sure you’re hosting them on YouTube, with a full http:// link back to your home page or even better to a landing page or blog post.

In fact, there’s no reason why business owners should stop with YouTube. There are plenty of other online video platforms out there, all of which are useful for drawing leads into your sales funnel. Some specific ones to consider include Daily Motion, Vevo, Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL Video Network, Vimeo, MetaCafe, Break.com, and UStream. An especially useful strategy: Use YouTube to link to your site, and use all of these other channels to link to your YouTube video!

2) Invest in Banner Ads

Outside of video marketing, business owners can also spread the word about their website by implementing some banner ads. Old-fashioned though they may seem, banner ads continue to be great ways to generate clicks; statistics reveal that roughly 39 percent of consumers say they click on banner ads that display products they are interested in. As such, placing a compelling banner ad on a relevant website can be a great way to increase website traffic. Head to SiteScout.com to invest in some banner ads at dirt-cheap rates.

3) Engage in Social Media

Another way to increase website traffic is to truly engage users in social media. This doesn’t mean setting up a Facebook page and a LinkedIn account, then letting them run on autopilot. Rather, it means actually posting daily content updates and cultivating conversations with your fans and followers—all of which can point them toward your company’s main online presence.

4) Consistently Refresh Your Content

Keeping people returning to your website means providing them with some incentives for coming back. In other words, if your website remains static, there is really no reason for anyone to ever visit it more than once. If you’re regularly posting new content, in the form of blog entries and informational articles, then you’re offering ample reason for users to bookmark your page and come back to it regularly.

This is not just a good way to produce return visitors. Consistent content creation also improves your Google search engine standings. Even making regular updates and revisions to your evergreen Web content—those pages of your site that are usually pretty static, like the About page—can boost your search engine clout.

5) Reach Out to Other Blogs

Your own company blog is not the only one you need to update regularly. Also make guest blogging a key part of your online marketing strategy. Seek out some blogs from like-minded companies or industry experts; for example, if yours is a financial services company, use Google or Bing to find the 10 or 20 highest-ranked and most influential blogs about financial services. Contact them and ask if you can write a relevant guest post, and you will be amazed at how often the doors open for you. If the blogger or webmaster is willing to include even one URL back to your company website, you’re in business!

+1 BONUS: Plan for Traffic

A final point, for businesses seeking to increase website traffic, is to consider this question: What happens when you succeed? What happens when you do get increased website traffic? Do you have lead-capturing measures in place to really take advantage of it—landing pages, and special offers for those at the top, middle, and bottom of the sales funnel? Doing this advanced planning is necessary if you want to take full advantage of that increased website traffic!

Does your marketing suck? Make sure it doesn’t! 

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In today’s business environment, most companies have an understanding of just how important digital marketing is for generating leads and boosting sales. Digital marketing may be important, then, but that hardly means that all online marketing campaigns are created equal. For every conversion-boosting, sales-enhancing marketing plan, there are at least a couple of flat-out money-wasters. Obviously, business owners need to be able to separate the good marketing strategies from the bad, which is why Endless Leadz is proud to offer a free webinar, covering this very topic.

Register Now >>

The free online event, to be held on May 9 at 1:00 PM EST, comes with a provocative title: “7 Deadly Things That You Should Be Aware of in Your Marketing If You Don’t Want To Waste Your Money.” Indeed, as important as it is to know the best strategies for digital marketing, it is equally helpful to identify the most common and costly blunders. This webinar will instruct business owners and their marketing teams on what to do—and what to avoid—to ensure cost-effective Internet marketing, brand enhancement, and lead generation.

The Endless Leadz webinar will be lead by the company’s founder, Zsolt Bicskey, a long-time inbound marketing specialist and buzz generator whose passion is for helping small and medium-sized companies make a big splash in the online world. He has assisted countless businesses in reaching their objectives, including brands in the U.S., Canada, China, and Europe.

The seminar will last an hour and cover the following critical topics:

• Money wasters
• Time wasters
• Inbound marketing tools, tips, and techniques
• Business blogging errors
• Social media errors
• The worst sales technique in the world
• Marketing automation nightmares

Register Now >>

Additionally, Bicskey will participate in a Q&A immediately following the broadcast. Participants are encouraged to come prepared to join in this live forum. Additionally, those who join in the free webinar will receive a complimentary marketing checklist, helping them to ensure that their online branding efforts are polished and highly effective.

Who should attend this informative event? It’s geared toward any business owner, CEO, or VP who is dissatisfied with his or her website’s performance, or who wishes to learn more about cost-effective, results-oriented digital marketing techniques. There is no technical experience required. Simply tune into the live Endless Leadz broadcast and learn how to get the most out of your online marketing endeavors!

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Keep the Lines of Communication Open

First and foremost, remember that, indeed, your marketing and sales teams really are working toward a common objective. This has become a difficult thing to understand, as more and more companies have found themselves divided by turf wars between the marketers and the sales managers, but facilitating integration between these two arms of your company is a necessary step for efficiently and effectively boosting sales. Something as simple as a weekly meeting, wherein the sales team shares its latest developments with the marketing team and vice versa, can be very fruitful.

Nurture Your Leads

The importance of lead nurturing cannot be overestimated; indeed, for companies wishing to know how to increase sales revenue, the secret is that bringing a lead into the sales funnel is just the start of the process, not the culmination of it. Research tells us that roughly 50 percent of all leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy, so conducting regular follow-up is essential for easing that lead to the point of a sale.

Customize Your Offers

Another staggering statistic: Personalized, relevant e-mails generate 18 times the revenue of general, broadcast e-mails. As you follow up with leads, then, don’t make the mistake of sending out cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all e-mail offers. Instead, offer customized offers for those who are in different places of the sales funnel—an offer for those at the top of the funnel may be different than an offer made to those at the bottom of the funnel, in other words. The key is to treat your leads as individuals, and to be patient as you earn their trust.

Automate

Though personalization is key, automation is also important, especially for companies wondering how to increase sales revenue as cost-effectively as possible. Marketing automation may be as simple as a stock reply send to those who express an inquiry in your company, followed later by a more personalized e-mail correspondence. Automation keeps the process moving along and ensures that no lead ever slips through the cracks.

Create Urgency

Another tip for those curious about how to increase sales revenue: Create a sense of urgency. Convince your prospects that now is the time to buy—because if they wait, it may be too late! A great way to do this is to promote special, one-time offers, making it clear that the window for acting is relatively brief.

Upsell and Cross-Sell

Businesses are also smart to upsell and to cross-sell as often as they can, which is actually quite easy when it comes to online commerce. If someone buys a product, you can send them an invoice or receipt that lists some relevant, related products. If you notice that a prospect is keenly interested in purchasing a load of fertilizer or mulch from you, the time is surely ripe to offer them grass seed, flower pots, or insecticide, as well; whether you’re making a personalized offer or simply cross-referencing related products on your company website, upselling and cross-selling are great ways to increase revenue.

Switch from Outbound to Inbound Marketing

A final tip: Make this the year when you leave those cold calls behind for good, and instead switch to an inbound marketing approach. The reality of today’s world is that consumers are more than willing to seek out the products and services they need via quick online searches—so it is vital for your business to be there, positioned as authoritative and customer-centric. Inbound marketing is just the thing for achieving this goal, and as such it is a more cost-effective approach than outbound marketing.

The bottom line is that those companies curious about how to increase sales revenue have several strategies at their disposal—and when used in tandem, these strategies can turn any marketing campaign into a well-oiled, sales-garnering machine!

Learn much more through this webinar on: 7 Deadly Things That You Should Be Aware of in Your Marketing If You Don’t Want To Waste Your Money

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Get Listed in Local Directories

If you want to add some serious juice to your website—to make sure it shows up when patrons search for local eating establishments—then getting listed in local directories is essential. The reason this is so important is that the search engines, especially Google, put a great deal of clout on these reputable and respectable local business directories—so if there’s a link to your website in one of those directories, it will improve your site’s local search rankings. Note that getting listed in local directories is easy when you use an all-in-one tool like SinglePlatform.com.

Optimize Your Google Places Profile

It goes without saying that, if you want to boost your restaurant’s standing in Google, you need to sign up for a Google Places profile. This is how Google classifies and highlights local businesses. Simply signing up for a profile is not enough, however; also make sure that you optimize it by filling out all of the information fields, even using some keywords related to the type of food you serve.

Get a Foursquare Listing

Another way to increase sales in restaurants: Get listed on Foursquare. When Foursquare first started, it was known primarily for allowing consumers to “check in” at various local venues, and it was almost like a game. These days, Foursquare is serious business, as it is increasingly distinguishing itself as a key local search tool, even directly competing with Yelp.com. In other words, Foursquare is where many patrons turn when they want to find a good local eating establishment, so it’s paramount that your restaurant is there to be found!

Ask for Facebook Check-Ins

Facebook check-ins are not frivolous; they are what fuel restaurant listings to success in Facebook Graph Search. If somebody uses Facebook to seek out a local restaurant, and your restaurant has a lot of check-ins from local clients, it is sure to emerge as one of the top contenders. Ask for check-ins, then; some restaurants even offer free appetizers or small discounts for the first check-ins of the day.

Solicit Good Reviews

Online review sites, like UrbanSpoon or Yelp.com, are going to be important sources of information about your restaurant, as more and more consumers are using these sites to research local establishments. There is little that you can do to altogether prevent bad reviews, outside of simply focusing on offering quality food and service, but you can proactively build up your positive reviews. Ask your best, most faithful clients to help you out with positive feedback, or leave links to your Yelp.com profile in receipts or on menus.

Try Some Video Marketing

Restaurant owners have generally been reluctant to really jump into video marketing, but the truth is that this is an invaluable form of outreach to potential patrons. Just think about all of the ways in which you can use online videos to entice potential patrons: You can show off your best dishes, you could interview your chef, you could even provide some video cooking tutorials. Video is an excellent platform for restaurant owners, and a fine tool to increase sales in restaurants.

Nurture Leads

Finally, those looking to increase sales in restaurants should note that the same sales-boosting techniques that work for other small businesses generally translate quite well to the restaurant industry—and that includes lead nurturing. Ask for the e-mail addresses of your patrons, and then use those addresses to nurture your leads. Send reminders, discounts, special offers, news about big events, invitations to find you on Facebook or Google+, and so on.

The bottom line for those seeking to increase sales in restaurants is that digital marketing can absolutely be used to put patrons into seats—and to build a restaurant’s online clout and visibility.

To make sure you do the right thing when you try to increase sales in your restaurant schedule a free consultation session with one of our specialist!

The post 7 KILLER Tips to Increase Sales in Restaurants appeared first on We Turn Your Website Into a 24/7 Lead Machine.