Rewiring Your Online Marketing Efforts

Written by Jeremy LaDuke

So, you’re looking into rewiring your online marketing efforts. You’ve come to the right place.

Without the proper expertise, rewiring your online marketing efforts is a lot like trying to rewire an old house.

My house is almost a century old. I love it. I probably wouldn’t trade it even if it meant getting a newer, bigger, better house.

There is lots of character here and I have put a lot of time and energy into it.

However, there is always something to fix, replace, update, or clean. Most of the wiring reigns from the 1930s and the attic is unfinished. One of my goals is to finish it out, but one of the biggest hurdles in my way is getting it wired. Like a lot of people, I cringe at the idea of throwing down a lot of money and having someone do it for me.  I like to do things on my own. But the more I research it the more I realize it’s a bigger task than simply running a line from the breaker box to the attic.

If I were to try to rewire my house without thoroughly educating myself with how-to’s from Home Depot, a plethora of videos from YouTube, and probably a lot of trial and error I would probably wind up killing myself or burning my house down. And even with all the DIY training I gave myself, there is still the chance that I might miss something that a seasoned electrician would spot in no time. The wiring in your house is a very powerful thing with lots of bad consequences if done poorly and a lot of comfort and security if done well. Your online marketing is similar. Your online marketing breathes life into your business if done well.

However, if shortcuts are taken and things aren’t done right then what would be your comfortable, impressive space in the business community winds up being a cold, dark, and insecure place.

If you are a business owner and you are doing it right, then chances are you don’t have the time to rewire your online marketing efforts yourself… just like I really don’t have the time to rewire my house!

Now, I still have hope to be able to do my wiring on my own.

But I can do without an unfinished attic indefinitely until I have the time and the know-how (or help from my more knowledgeable neighbor!) to do it. The house won’t fall apart in the meantime. However, if you are running a business you can’t wait to get your online marketing right. If it’s not a priority for your business now, it doesn’t get to be a priority for your business later because if you put off your marketing you might not have a business. I see businesses in our community come and go on a weekly basis.

And most of the time, the reason they go is because they failed at marketing.

I hate that! I hate to see good businesses go under just because they didn’t have a mind for marketing. That’s one of the reasons I started Epic Nine – to be the marketing department for great businesses that don’t have a marketing department.

I have put together a quick assessment to help you gauge how well your online marketing is right now. Take the quick assessment below and see how well your online marketing is doing and where your potential for growth is.

Take Epic Nine’s Online Marekting Quiz

Or you can read through it here 🙂

  • Do you have a website?

  • How many phone calls are you getting each month from your website?

  • Is it properly optimized for search?

    • Do you have your main keyword in the title tag on each of the pages of your website? [E.G. Your City Plumber ] Your Company Name
    • Do you have pages for each of your core services?
    • Do you have pages for the brands that you service?
    • Do you have unique content on each of the pages of your website?
    • Are you helping Google understand your true service area?

  • Does your website rank on page one for your most important keywords like “your city Plumber”, “your city Plumbing”, your city AC Repair”, etc?

  • Is your website optimized for conversion (visitors to callers)?

    • Do you have the Phone Number in the top right corner on every page?
    • Are you using authentic images/video? Photo of the owner, photo of your trucks, photo of your team, etc?
    • Do you have a compelling Call To Action after ever blog of text?

  • Is your website MOBILE-friendly?

  • Are you consistently creating new content, blogging and creating new inbound links back to your website?

  • Have you optimized correctly for the Google Map Listings?

    • What is your Google Login for Google Plus & Google Places?
    • Have you properly optimized your listing?
    • Are you on all the major online directory listings with the same company name, address & phone number?
    • How many online reviews do you have?
    • Do you have a proactive strategy for getting new online reviews ever day?

  • Are you active on Social Media?

    • Do you have your business profiles setup on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedln, YouTube?
    • How many likes do you have on Facebook?
    • Are you updating your social profiles on a daily basis?

  • Are you leveraging eMail Marketing?

    • Do you have a database with your customer email addresses?
    • Are you sending out a monthly email newsletter?
    • Are you leveraging email to get online reviews & to draw customers into your social media?

  • Are you taking advantage of paid online marketing opportunities?

    • Do you have an AdWords Campaign? Are you strategically targeting with specific adgroups, text ads Standing pages?
    • Do you have a premium ad on Angle’s List, Yelp, CitySearch, YP.com?
    • Are you taking advantage of Paid Lead Services – Home Advisor, etc?

  • Do you have the proper tracking in place to gauge your ROI?

    • GoogleAnalytics
    • Keyword Ranking Tracking
    • Call Tracking
    • CRM with tracked lead sources
    • Google Webmaster Tools

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