Dinkum Interactive » google maps

Online Market Research: Helpful Tools

Bill — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:08:47 +0000

Recently, I was brainstorming with several small business owners for ideas on how to increase their sales. While the conversation touched on a variety of topics, we continually revisited the subject of market research. After some discussion, it became clear that they were woefully uninformed about the variety of low/no cost online tools that could help them improve both their online and offline businesses. As a result, I want to offer suggestions on 5 online market research tools that every business can use.

Google Maps

There are a million things that can affect the sales of a brick and mortar business. Area competitors, availability of complimentary services and traffic sources are just a few. Google Maps is a great tool to help traditional businesses improve their understanding of what is affecting the business. Competitors, access to public transit, complementary businesses and public attractions can be easily added to a private map with just a couple clicks of a mouse.

Online Surveys

Every business needs feedback. Online surveys can provide a quick and easy way to ask existing customers and prospects their opinions on a variety of topics. With services like SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang, it can be cheap too. Furthermore, online surveys don’t have to be complex as long as you follow a few online survey tips.

Website Research Tools

Whether a business is developing its own website, creating content or investigating its competitors, there are and endless supply of research tools that can be used to provide insight. Here are a few:

SEOMoz Term Extractor – Want to get an idea of which terms your competitor is targeting? While you can start by looking at a web page’s Title Tags and Meta Description, the SEOMoz Term Extractor will offer some helpful advice.

Yahoo Site Explorer – Many consider links as a form of web currency. Businesses interested in who is linking to their competitors can use this tool to identify competitor linking strategy and even find a few link candidates of their own.

SpyFu - Pay Per Click marketing can be very productive and understanding what keywords are being targeted by competitors can offer some valuable insight. SpyFu is a tool that can do that.

Website Analytics

It only makes sense to understand what a business’ existing website visitors want, so using a website analytics package is crucial. Website analytics packages like Google Analytics, Clicky, Mint or one of the many other analytics packages offer businesses the ability to get a better understanding of their users at very little cost. In addition, it’s equally important to spend the time to translate the data generated by any package into useable information. Just as Avinash Kaushik, he’ll tell you.

Twitter

While Twitter may not be the right tool for every business’ social media marketing efforts, it can be a great research tool. A quick search of Twitter using keywords and themes can uncover a great deal of information an opinion on a given topic. For those companies that actively use Twitter, asking Twitter Followers is a great way to quickly get opinions on products, company performance and many other areas.

In conclusion, these are just a few low/no cost online tools that I feel can be useful to businesses. What tools do you use for market research? Please share them in our comments section.

Bill Rowland

Social Media Without a Website?

Bill — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:48:33 +0000

Believe it or not, companies without a significant web presence can still use social media to promote their businesses. Of course, it’s preferable to have a website where those interested can get more information, but it’s not necessary. There are a number of ways that businesses can still participate and promote themselves. Here are a few ideas:

Review Sites

Review sites offer users the ability to comment on products and services, but they also offer businesses the ability to provide information about the business, including location, hours of operation, photos and even coupons! Generally, one doesn’t need to be an technical expert. Several examples include:

Event Listings

This is one opportunity that most businesses miss. While it may require some creativity, businesses can leverage a local event, or sponsor a business event that can be listed for no cost. Not only do these events become something of interest to discuss with clients and prospects, but it provides valuable inbound links for SEO. Some sites include:

Review sites and event listings are just a couple ideas that offer businesses a low cost way to promote themselves online. Each requires some effort: Review sites require regular monitoring and interaction with clients. Event listings require some original thought and a bit of effort, but can promote conversation with prospects and clients, as well as some inbound links. Regardless, the amount of effort is minimal for a significant upside potential.

Do you have a unique angle on how to use social media without a website? Give it up in the comments!

Bill Rowland

Local Search Tips: Hack Your Way to the Top

Bill — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:26:34 +0000

Ok, maybe “hack” is a bit strong, but small businesses can dramatically improve their ability to be found in their local area by doing a couple simple things.

Sign Up for Local Business Directories

There are a wide variety of local business directories that offer SMBs the opportunity to list their companies for free. Of course, the “800 pound Gorilla” is Google Local, but Yahoo!, Yellow Pages and YellowBook are nothing to sneeze at either. Businesses should be prepared to provide a complete profile, hours of operation, a photo, etc… Here are a few links to get started:

Geotag Content

Businesses should make every attempt to occupy as much of the first page for their business location as possible. This is particularly helpful for B2C businesses, but it can also be helpful to B2Bs too. Briefly, Geotagging Geotagging is the inclusion of geographic information when posting content. This can include the town, a street address or even longitude or latitude information on sites like Flickr, YouTube and Google Maps .

These are just two examples of how businesses can help themselves by spending a modest amount of additional efforts in their online marketing efforts to dramatically improve their online visibility.

We’ll offer more tips in the near future. In the meantime, can you offer any of your favorites?

Bill Rowland