Archive for March, 2009

Professional Painters - Do YOU want to show up on Google’s first page in the top ranked search terms for painting contractors in your local area and get leads?

Advisors On Target has added a new service and we want our clients and newsletter readers to have the first opportunity to see what we have going on and to participate if you are interested. Advisors On Target and Web Strategy Lab have teamed up to launch Pro Painting Net, which we believe will be of tremendous value to our clients.

Are you ready to get better business results online?  Then claim YOUR local service area now with your own Pro Painting Net Mini-Site!

All 3 of our On Target Beta-Testers are on the front page of Google for the top ranking search term with their locale! This happened within days.

Some of you may be able to say you are already on the top 10 listings in Google, if so, Congratulations. But most of you are not ranking where one of your sites have the best chance of being found.

Would you like to be here? Look at these results for Painting Contractor and On Target group member, Mario Guertin

Now you too can be a part of Pro Painting Net - a network of websites built around the highest volume painting-related keywords on the search engines. What’s in it for you?

• You get your own 3-page ‘mini-sites’ optimized for local searches for your painting services in any of your service areas.
• You get exclusive rights on any PPN Domain to any service area you choose - and you define the service areas.
• You get quality backlinks to your existing website.
• You benefit from the success of every other member of the Network.
• By the way, it’s very affordable

Your Mini-site is meant to be a piece of your online presence – another way to get you found and will in most cases rank faster and higher than you can get your “main” website to rank for the top search terms

But does it really work? We asked 3 On Target Members to be beta-testers for this new program, one in a small market and two in larger markets but using a the name of a local service area within the larger market as a key word. Here are our Beta Tester stats from March 1, 2009 for the term “house painting” followed by the local name: continue

While the jury is still out on just how effective a presence in the social media networks is for small brick and mortar service businesses, many product driven businesses,  public professionals like speakers and authors and, of course, internet marketers are doing very well.  As a coach and small business consultant I have been monitoring social media and creating my own presence there.

The time is ripe, I believe, for small business owners of any type, including the contractors who make up much of my readership, to take the plunge into social networks and create a professional presence.

Over 35 Million people use LinkedIn, the professional network and over 200 Million use FaceBook which has a growing community of business pages as well as personal profiles.  Twitter is also growing by leaps and bounds.  In fact Twitter and FaceBook are the leading social networks with LinkedIn a distant third.  I think that small businesses should have a presence on all three.

When you think about it where do most of your leads come from?  For most of my clients the top three sources of leads are existing customers, referrals from existing customers and referrals from strategic partners.  Online social networks are another just venue for your customers and strategic partners to connect you with other potential customers.

Advisors On Target will continue to provide support and resources to help your business maximize your professional presence in online social networks.  Here are two ways you can make sure you stay in touch on upcoming events and resources:  Send us an email or Join our Advisors On Target Business Success Groups on LinkedIn and FaceBook.