Optimizing Google Places Part 4 – The Final Tweaks

In Optimizing Google Places Part 1, we discussed the things you can do to start your business using a search engine optimization mindset. In Optimizing Google Places Part 2, we covered the techniques used on your website to increase your Google Places ranking. In Optimizing Google Places Part 3, we talked about the two things you can do outside of your website.Now that you have made all of these improvements, you are looking for ways to squeak out the last little bit of rank you can in your Google Business listing. Whether or not these tips actually improve your rank are still being hotly debated, but going off the premise that Google loves information, providing more information can only help.Tip 1: Give Google the informationCompletely fill out your Google Places listing! Google Places even provides a little percentage bar because it is important – make sure it is 100% completed. Google loves information, so give it as much as possible without being spammy. Spammy is always bad.Tip 2: Include a picture with your listingIt’s simple, it’s quick, and even if Google Places doesn’t love you for it, potential customers will. Grab your digital camera, go outside, and take a good picture of the front of your business. An optimal picture will include your sign and enough surrounding information to help potential customers locate your business as they drive down the street. Go back inside, and upload that picture to your listing. Done.Tip 3: Include a video with your listingNot as simple as a picture, but as always with Google, more information is better. Include a commercial, or use your webcam to talk about your business. Make it as professional as possible, and upload the video to your listing.Tip 4: Include a direct link to a critical part of your websiteGoogle Places recently added the ability to include a link to specific information on your website. For instance, if you are a restaurant with a menu online, go to the Additional Details section, type “Our Menu” on the left box, and in the right box, put the URL of your menu. Your Google Places listing will now have a link directly to your menu.This can be used for online applications or any other critical information that a potential customer would want to get to directly on your website. Do not use it just to create more links to your website pages.Tip 5: Do not include local information in the categoriesWith Google Local Business, you used to be able to include the city or state in the custom category and it would greatly increase ranking – this is no longer the case. In fact, Google Places penalizes this behavior, and if a customer looks for more results (links to Google maps), it will usually strip the local terms ie. “Grand Rapids Pest Control” would become “pest control”. Sticking to the supplied categories is usually good enough, unless your business is very unique.These final tweaks will help you squeak ahead of stiff local business competition. At McFarlan Enterprises, we love to see local businesses succeed online, and we hope this series has been beneficial for your company. If you would like to use our professional search engine optimization services, give us a call at (616) 717-5805 now!

How Can Digital Marketing Work for Your Business?

There is no question that we live in the digital world and from this perspective; it is significant that your business has magnificent presence in the digital space. Internet marketing or digital marketing is the marketing future across the world with full of advantages as compared to traditional marketing. Here are the few reasons why digital marketing is important for every business:

Provides equal opportunity to all kinds of businesses.

More cost effective as compared to traditional Marketing.

Delivers more conversions.

Helps in generating more Revenues.

Facilitates interaction with targeted audience.

Also caters to mobile customers.

It helps in earning people trusts

All these reasons show that digital marketing or digital modes of communication are quicker, result driven and more adaptable. To optimize your business and drive conversions, it is essential to know about all the digital marketing elements, which are as follows:SEO (Search Engine Optimization)In the layman’s terms, SEO is a marketing discipline, which focuses on organic (non-paid) visibility on search engines. SEO is not only related to making your website or online presence better for search engines but also about making it better for people. To provide relevant results to its audience, Google regularly updates its algorithms. Because of this regular updates by Google, many experts say that their effort is futile but their results or SEO is dead. However the truth is that Google tries to filter the websites that don’t deserve to be on the top of search Engine Result Pages (SERP’s).SEO is one of the most cost-effective strategies that will bring organic traffic to your website. So, there is no doubt in investing in SEO work.SEM (Search Engine Marketing)It is the most effective and comprehensive strategy to grow your business and drive more traffic to your website in an increasingly competitive market. With lots of business presence on digital platform and all of them keeping their eyes on the same, it is significant to advertise online, and SEM is one of the best ways to promote or advertise your business. It is done primarily through paid effort, which is why it is also called as Paid Search Marketing.The SEM domain is diverse and complicated, so on the basis of the structure of your business, you may choose PPC (Pay per Click) or CPM (Cost Per-Thousand Impressions) or CPC (Cost per Click). Google AdWords (Google) and Bing ads (Yahoo) are the most popular platforms for SEM.Content CreationContent creation is an effective marketing method and even after the changes in Google’s algorithms like Penguin, Panda or Humming bird update, content is still the most significant metric while measuring the search results. Content can be presented in many ways, such as blogs, e-books, case studies, how to guides, question & answer articles, banners, infographics, images, news updates, videos or content for social media sites.You can create content on any topic related to your business (if you are creative), and then skillfully link it to your business indirectly. The content should be professional and search engine optimized. It is always better to leave certain things in hands of professionals to achieve success in your business. There are many Content Writing as well as Content Marketing agencies which not only write the content in the professional way but also promote it on digital media to create brand awareness and bring traffic, which in turn convert to your customers.SMM (Social Media Marketing)Social Media Marketing uses social networking sites (like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest etc.) as a tool of promoting websites and bringing traffic towards your business.The basic goal of SMM is to engage or communicate with the users, increase brand visibility and reach more customers. Having an active Social Media Presence (engage on daily basis) has become an invaluable part to expand your reach, which as a result will build your own reputation and brand.Mobile MarketingThe consistent use of smartphones in daily life has brought this technique of marketing. This technique would definitely give more exposure to your business as mobile has become an integral part of our life. Mobile marketing can be done in various ways. Some of them are as:

App-Based marketing

In-Game Mobile Marketing

SMS

Mobile Search Ads

Mobile Image ads

Email MarketingEmailing is one of the easiest and inexpensive ways to advertise your business and products or services as compared to all other digital marketing strategies. Below are some of the reasons how email marketing can help in growth of your business:

Email has wider reach

Email delivers your communication

Email drives conversions

Email results in higher ROI(Return on Investment)

It is an open platform and will remain there forever

All the above reasons, shows that email marketing is the most effective marketing channel that can help you to connect with audience and drive sales and revenue for your business.ConclusionAs a marketer, you have many channels and strategies to promote your business online and reach your audience. It is important to choose different marketing strategies for your business to succeed online. However, the truth is the combination of different strategies can only serve your objectives better. A digital marketing agency offers all online solutions that can help you in achieving a high ROI. These agencies consult, strategize and execute to deliver the best. So, it is highly recommended to opt for professional digital marketing services to achieve online business success.

Search Results

#EANF#

Opt For Preventive Care To Reduce The Cost of Healthcare

People often do not prioritize their health and visit the hospital or their doctors while detecting some disease-causing symptoms in their bodies. However, preventive care is the best possible way everyone can undertake and cease the risk factors before the symptoms become dangerous and life-threatening. The following article will focus completely on preventive health care and how it helps reduce further costs involved with healthcare.

Suggested article: Preventive Dental Care In California

What is Preventive Care?

Preventive health care or prophylaxis involves the measures that people consider for preventing any diseases. The form of healthcare includes utilizing medical services or precautions that fight against the potential health crisis. It is the most important step that people can adopt in better management of their health.

Several factors such as genetic predisposition, lifestyle, environmental factors, and disease agents affect people’s health. Hence, everyone must undergo periodic health check-ups and screening tests from the doctors.

People opt for preventive health care for maintaining better health, and eliminating the disease becomes serious. Preventive care in conjunction with medicines will save a patient from health breakdown and save money from future expenses, especially if the patient is suffering from a chronic disease.

What are the Preventative Care Services?

Here are some of the examples of preventive health care services, along with their frequencies. ·

Annual Check-up (1 per calendar year): During the annual check-up, the doctor or Primary Care Provider (PCP) checks all areas of a person’s health, including physical and psychological. Examining the patients in detail helps in detecting any health care concerns in the early stages.

· Flu Shot (1 per year): Most health plans include flu shots and protect the patients from all strains of flu viruses.

· Mammogram (1 calendar year, after the patient attains the age of 40 years): Patients over the age of 40 must undergo routine x-rays of breast tissues and check for signs of cancer and other abnormalities. Some health plans might cover the costs of 3D imaging. ·

Colonoscopy (usually once in every decade after the age of 50) for detecting colon cancer.

· Vaccinations, including boosters for such as measles, rubella, polio, etc. administered during childhood.

Preventive health care helps keep people productive and active, enabling them to earn well during their senior years. Studies show that approximately 35% of people have to consider early retirement, even before they are financially ready. Opting for affordable, preventive care helps in reducing the numbers.

Why Should Patients Opt for Preventive Care?

Access to preventive health care helped reduce healthcare costs among Americans, as the physicians can prevent or treat the disease before the patient needs emergency room (ER) care. Almost one-third of costs in America include hospital care, which is undoubtedly very expensive. In 2010, 21.4% of adults paid at least a visit to the emergency room, which reduced to 18.6% in 2017. Adults not having affordable access to preventive care are more likely to pay a couple of visits to the emergency room.

Statistics show that 7% of the adults in the age group of 18-64 paid visits to the ER in 2014, as they had no other option, regardless of their health insurance status. About 77% of Americans went to the emergency rooms due to complications in their health, including those whose doctors advised them for emergency room care. Approximately 15.4% of uninsured adults in 2014 are more likely to use the emergency room, as they lacked other providers.

Undoubtedly, the cost of ER care for uninsured patients was extremely high. Hospitals provide care, even if the patient fails to provide fees for their services. As hospitals must recover the cost, they shift to Medicaid and health insurance premiums, which increases the healthcare cost for everyone.

Impact of Preventive Care Cost on Health Care Costs

Chronic diseases are the major leading cause of death among people, either preventable or manageable with regular visits to health care. These include:

· Heart diseases

· Cancer

· Stroke and

· Chronic lower respiratory diseases

Poor nutrition and obesity are the leading cause of heart disease and stroke. Genetics and smoking lead to lung cancer, which is the most common type of cancer. Obesity also risks several other forms of cancer.

Treating these chronic diseases is expensive, even before they reach emergency room status. Approximately 90% of the 3.5 trillion USD includes health care expenditures for people suffering psychological problems and chronic diseases. Patients who never went for preventative care or did not have any prescription coverage failed to afford the treatments, screenings, regular check-ups, and medications that would manage the underlying conditions of the disease. Instead, they head up to the emergency rooms with cases of strokes, heart attacks, and other complications.

However, with regular access to affordable, preventive care, the patients were more likely to discover and manage their chronic conditions. Doing so lowers the chances of visiting the emergency rooms and investing more into expensive treatments for those diseases, which passed regular management. With the decrease in the expenditure for treatments, the overall healthcare cost also decreases for everyone, as the hospitals no longer try to cover the treatment cost of the uninsured patients.

When and What Preventive Health Care is the Most Suitable?

A patient’s primary health care provider will help him or her coordinate the most suitable shots and tests. While analyzing the beneficial shots, the health care provider will consider certain aspects such as family history, age, sex, current health status, and several other factors.

Conclusion

Preventive health care often covers 100% of health plans and offers the patients several benefits both in cost and health. However, if the patient experiences doubts or are in dilemmas about the things covered and tests conducted, he or she must communicate with the physician at the earliest.

Everyone knows, “health is wealth.” If a patient is healthy, he or she will perform the best. However, it is also important to adopt a healthy lifestyle, reducing the risk factors and saving the patients from spending money on medicines.

Older posts »