Four Online Marketing Mistakes Local Businesses Make (and How To Fix Them)

It's a good day today you know why? It’s Q&A Tuesday. Today's question is from Ashley. And Ashley writes, “Love Q&A Tuesdays. I live for Tuesday more because of them.” 

‍

Thank you, Ashley. “Here's my question. I have an event beginning in mid-September. I want to book it out. I've been promoting since July in one publication of has lots of interest but no signups. Yet how can I market my offering in 25 days or less to big success?Tremendous gratitude for your insight. Love, Ashley.”

‍

Ashley here's how we roll in Q&A Tuesday. I see a Q that I really want to A and I go check you out on your website. Now I went to your website and I was like hold. Oh, there's one big problem. I went on your website and started looking around and took me about six minutes no lie to figure out where the heck you are located now. Here's why this is such a big problem: you are a local business my dear. You are running a yoga studio and you're trying to fill up a local eve and it took me six minutes even more than that to find out where the hell you're located. That's a problem. Yes it is. Yes. 

‍

Keypoint y'all, if you have a local business you're a yoga teacher you run a yoga studio, you're a photographer, maybe you're an interior designer, anything that's locally based, you can't hide your location from us on your website. You need to shout your location loud and proud everywhere possible cause trust me, it impacts your business. 

‍

So for Ashley in every other business out there that's locally based here are four simple changes you can make right now to your website. Change number one you see that big header on your website make sure it includes exactly where you're located. This is the kind of task that it'll take you maybe an hour to hire a graphic designer to do and it'll make a huge impact, trust me.

‍

Number two what you want to do is make sure that your location, your city, and your state are in the title tag and the meta tag of your homepage. Why? So search engines like Google can find you and help people like me know exactly where you are when we search for you online.

‍

Number three is you want to put your location on the bottom of every page of your website or just put it in the footer just want to make sure it shows up. Why? Because not everybody comes in the front door of your website. Not everybody lands on the homepage. Sometimes they come in through interior pages, like if you wrote a blog post or maybe your about page. So you have to make sure it’s down there too.

‍

Number four you want to get yourself listed on google.com/places it's free now. Why is this important? Because when someone searches Google for yoga in Columbia Missouri you are going to come up. 

‍

Next, let's talk about your event. So when I was on your site I was actually looking for this event so I could give you some marketing advice and you know what else was the problem girl? I couldn't find it and I was looking for it. So if I'm looking for this event and I can't find it, that means that it's gonna be pretty difficult for you to fill it up. What I did find though is this link on your site and it was kind of a janky-looking link and I clicked around and it took me to a bunch of different places and I know that you're much better than that so we can fix that easy enough.

‍

Here's what I want you to do. If you want to fill any event you got to feature it on your site woman. Stop hiding the goods while there are hundreds of qualified web designers out there. I'm gonna recommend you go check out my friend Michelle Martello over at Minima Designs. We'll put a link to it below this video.

‍

Now I don't get any kickback from Michelle but she is a graduate of rich happy and hot and B-School so I know she's been trained by me. She understands marketing she's also a fantastic designer who specializes in people that serve the yoga community and health and wellness, so go check her out. Hire her she'll be able to help you big-time.

‍

Ashley that was the A to your Q or at least my A to your Q. I know you want to talk about event marketing but trust me, this stuff is so much more important for the long-term success of your business. So all y'all if you like this video, like it please, comment, share it with your friends. And if you're not yet on the newsletter list and you want to get every new video when it comes out every Tuesday, come on over to marieforleo.com, and jump on the list.

‍

Thank you so much for watching and I will catch you next time. Hey, RHH Live is coming up. Are you coming? Go to rhhlive.com.

‍