Education

Digital Marketing is a marketing strategy that uses the internet and online resources to improve sales, create brand awareness and bring more customers to your business. Digital marketing uses many different strategies to accomplish this: Local SEO, Reputation Management, Digital Advertising and Social Media (Direct Local’s Foundation) to create a presence online that makes it easy for your customers to find you, engage with you and choose your business.

In short, SEO means search engine optimization. SEO is the practice of improving your business’s website to help the search engines understand what your business is, where it is located, what your specialties are and many other things. SEO is accomplished through work on the backend of your website using metadata, keyword saturation and optimization of your on-site content.

• Local SEO is the digital strategy that includes creating, claiming and optimizing your business’s listings in online directories (Google Maps, Yelp, Bing to name a few), ensuring that your business information is correct in those directories and fixing any inaccuracies and then the ongoing presence management that follows (making any necessary changes to name, website, address, URL, etc when the need arises.) For more information on Local SEO plans, visit: https://mydirectlocal.com/local-seo/. 

A landing page is a small web page that is separate from your normal website. It is designed for multiple purposes: optimized for Local SEO, to be used in a digital ad campaign, getting a special offer, etc. 

Yes! Every Direct Local Local SEO plan comes with a landing page that is optimized for local directories with optimized keyword placement to support the information that is being distributed to the online directories that we are managing on your behalf.

A listing is the part of the maps or directory that is specific to your business. It has your contact information, address, website and allows you to broadcast specific offers your want to promote for your business.

If you have a business that is trying to sell products or services in a brick and mortar location or operate inside a specific service area, you can benefit from Local SEO services from Direct Local.

Reputation management is the process of managing your online reputation through the way your business generates new positive reviews while managing your neutral or negative reviews (3 stars or lower on most review sites.) To explore more about Reputation Management with Direct Local, visit: https://mydirectlocal.com/reputation-management/. 

All businesses need Reputation Management. If you are a restaurant, service professional, retail store, eCommerce business or any other business type, people read reviews online about your business and what type of service or experience to expect when doing business with you.

Typically review platforms use a star rating system to score the reviews that customers can leave for your business. The 5-star review is the ultimate compliment that customers can leave for your business. 4-star and 5-star reviews are viewed as positive reviews, a 3-star review is considered neutral and anything below a 3-star rating is considered negative. Customers should have a plan in place to handle any review that is 3-star or lower to improve your online reputation and respond to each situation. 

Typically, bad reviews online cannot be removed. In certain cases, you might be able to get them removed if the reviewer violated the terms of the review site but removing bad reviews can actually harm your online reputation. The best way to handle bad reviews is to reply to them and replace them with even more good reviews that they get buried in the list. Remember, bad reviews are good chances to improve the quality of your customer service and learn from your mistakes.

Paid Advertising is the strategy of paying for placement of ads for your business on search engine results pages, social media sites or on other websites.

All of Direct Local’s Paid Advertising plans are customized to your business’s budget and strategy! We have the ability to use a combination of advertising strategies to meet your business objectives. Brand Invigorating ads (Display) to build your online brand recognition, PPC (Search) ads to create urgency for your products and services, Retargeting ads to bring traffic back to your website after they have already visited to complete a purchase and Social Media ads to engage customers and promote your business socially. Any of these ads can be used in a customized plan specific to your business or goals. To learn more about our Paid Advertising plans, visit: https://mydirectlocal.com/paid-advertising/. 

Paid Advertising works great for any type of local business. Contact us to discuss your options and budgets and let our experts put together a customized plan for you and your business.

Social Media Management is the digital marketing to use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn to reach and engage with your current and potential customers by creating engaging content to meet your business goals and reply to any comments or messages you receive on the platforms. To learn more about our Social Media Management programs, visit: https://mydirectlocal.com/social-media-management/. 

We’d be happy to help your business navigate through the digital marketing landscape! You can fill out a form here: https://mydirectlocal.com/contact-us/ or call 800.587.1463 and we will discuss your options with you to grow your business online and meet the goals you have set for your business.

Our digital marketing packages start as low as $250/month. You can get more details about our plans and pricing here: https://mydirectlocal.com/pricing/.