Call 816-462-9128

Tag: local SEO company

How To Avoid The Online Reviews Blues

Local Search Engine Optimization in Kansas City, Leawood, and Overland Park

One of the most challenging things we’ve had to deal with at Web Force KC while working with our clients over the years is online reviews. In fact, after many years of trying to communicate how vital getting online reviews are to our clients, we eventually crafted a clever reminder that we tend to tell at least one of them once a week: The only review that you’ll get that you don’t ask for is usually one that you don’t want. What’s odd about online marketing and its effect on consumers’ buying decisions is that the days of 2 neighbors chatting at their fence line asking, “who does your lawn care?” are rare, if not nonexistent. What’s even more interesting is that we now use the internet to find products and/or services we want or need and base our buying decisions on the opinions (i.e.reviews) of people we don’t even know. Of course, word of mouth and referrals still exist, but as a marketing agency, our job is to generate leads and customers solely through a carefully woven web of our client’s online presence and let the companies we promote deliver their goods and services the way they see fit.

That’s why getting solid reviews and maintaining a quality rating is imperative to the success of any business using the web as a tool to generate business. In the case of Web Force KC, we primarily work with small, locally owned, and operated businesses that, more often than not, have big corporate competition that can be tough but not impossible to beat in the SEO arena. With online reviews, we’ve found that larger corporate entities that offer similar services to our clients often struggle to get and maintain good reviews for whatever reason, which is why keeping and growing our client’s online reputation is a big part of what we do. The dilemma is not so easily solved by merely asking customers to write beaming reviews because most will say a resounding “YES” but soon forget or blow it off. This is why we took the initiative to make getting and asking for reviews simple and streamlined using the fact that most everyone has a smartphone in their pocket or purse that can be used to help get our client’s customers onto their review pages and leave feedback that helps win even more business. We’re not going to get into details as to how we are creating seamless avenues to get more reviews or even social media followers, but chances are you’ve seen how and what we do in nearly every business, particularly since COVID-19 hit the US last year. (Hint: it has something to do with a phone’s camera.)

For some industries we work with, it is incredibly challenging to get consistent reviews as many of our clients are in what some would consider taboo industries. We’ve found that many of their customers don’t necessarily want to advertise publicly that they shop there for whatever reason. That’s why when you see that breakthrough moment with a customer that digs what you do or sell, you make it a point to say something along the lines of, “I’m glad we could help. We’d appreciate it if you could write a review for us so that other people know that we’re the real deal.” That sounds a bit canned, but you get the point. You and your staff should ask for reviews from every customer you know is satisfied with what you do or did every day. Of course, you can’t make everyone happy, and it’s safe to assume that most people online know that, which is why the occasional bat-shit crazy review from someone that you could never satisfy isn’t going to hurt a business that has countless 5-star reviews and 1 or 2 bad ones.

We get that you get busy, overwhelmed with the details of running a business, and can easily forget to ask for reviews. Still, the fact is that you likely already have customers that can and will write a stellar recommendation for what you sell or do, but they don’t know how and where to do it. Ask and show them.

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for Kansas City web design and online marketing.

Web Design Social Media

SEO

Support Contact

August 16, 2021
Same Concept, Different Blog

Content marketing can be tough especially when the business you’re writing for doesn’t really change that much. However, I’ve learned to find ways around getting into a writer’s slump primarily by realizing and accepting that no matter how much you’ve written about a given subject, product, or service, there is always more that you can do but it doesn’t always come easy.

SEO and Content Marketing in Kansas City, MO

I write a TON of content for my clients and it’s really easy to get burned out but thankfully I’m never really short on ideas (most good, some not so good.) As I’ve acquired more clients and my older clients have grown, I’ve had to find new ways to market them and, honestly, some weeks it goes as smooth as silk and others it’s like pulling teeth. Look at it this way: for one of my oldest clients, I have written and published over 1,800 blog posts and hundreds of website pages and while their business never really changes much with the exception of adding new products to their retail store, the content I write on their behalf has to be ever changing, unique, engaging and relevant in order for it to be effective. Sure some content is better than others but the key has been to be consistent with regularly publishing blog posts and making adjustments to the overall page structure of their website(s) when necessary for all of my clients to help them grow their businesses.

A few weeks back, I was in burn out mode and started thinking about examples in my life and the world I observe of how individuals are able to take the same concept(s) and re-imagine them over and over again without getting sick and tired of doing it. At the time, I was getting back into old school Metallica and I thought, “Boy, they must be so over playing the song ‘One’ at every single show for weeks and months at a time.” The thing is that ‘One’ (one of my least favorite Metallica songs) was a massive hit and there are likely fans in the audience every night they play that are only there to hear that one (no pun unintended) song. Having seen Metallica live (among other metal bands) many times over the years, I noticed they always find ways to change things up a little bit in their biggest songs but overall the singalongs and melody remains constant which is cool for the audience but probably also good for the band that has played these songs hundreds if not thousands of times. It made me realize that even though I may feel like I’m writing about the same products and services for my clients over and over again, I have to find new and innovative ways to change it up for my audience as well as for myself so I don’t go insane or get severely burned out. It’s not that there won’t be days when I’m just not feeling it and the words don’t flow like a river but realizing that this is the way that artists, marketers, and people that are just good at what they do have to make changes and adjustments to keep their audiences’ and their own interest focused. Content marketing probably isn’t as cool as a Metallica song but it felt good to connect the two and whatever makes me think, makes me better at what I do. That’s what Web Force KC does (for itself and) for our clients.

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for effective web design and online marketing in the Kansas City area.

Home Web Design SEO Social Media Support Contact Us

July 17, 2020
Lead Aggregators Are the Worst

Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash

If you’re a business owner and you do B to C (business to consumer), you are likely bombarded on a daily basis on the phone, in your mailbox and in your inbox with companies trying to sell you “leads.” Some claim to provide exclusive leads while others sell shared leads which is even worse but either way do you get what you pay for? In my experience the answer is a big NO. However, I have had first hand experience on the other side of the lead aggregator business as being the one selling the leads which gives me unique insight as to how they work.

Search Engine Optimization and Web Design in Kansas City, MO

Photo by fran hogan on Unsplash

Many years ago before Web Force KC was even a glimmer in my eye I took a job working for a company “Service Magic”. Sounds corny right? You have no idea. At first it was a real hippy trippy, casual office atmosphere and according to some of the mid level managers I talked to, the owners were pretty cool but the company itself was changing rapidly into an ultra corporate entity that sold millions of dollars in “leads” and I would soon learn I didn’t want any part of it. First let’s define what a lead aggregator is. A lead aggregator is usually a company with a massive website with hundreds of pages that showcase the businesses and business owners that have unfortunately opted to partner with them. Home Advisor (formerly Service Magic) is a great example of a lead aggregator in that they tend to show up in search results for pretty much anything and everything you search for as it pertains to home improvement and they almost always rank pretty prominently. The goal of the lead aggregator website is to gobble up as many clicks as it pertains to a specific search as possible from what we would assume are homeowners looking for home improvement services and then sell the “leads” to their paying contractors. Sound OK so far right especially for a small company that is just starting out and needs business? The problem is that these same “leads” are shared with multiple other contractors in your area all at the same time (or at least as fast as your internet connection is). From there, it’s a mad dash to get that “lead” on the phone and schedule an estimate but the problem is that most of these small businesses or contractors are busy working with their hands and can’t always drop what they’re doing to call the lead back immediately. So it’s essentially a race to get the lead but the bad part about it is that all of the contractors or companies that got that “lead” have to pay for it whether they get the “job” or not. Way back when I worked for Service Magic, some of the leads, particularly for services like home remodeling, cost upwards of $80.00 per lead and I can’t imagine prices have gone down since then. Now, that’s how it works from the lead aggregator and contractor side but there’s another side to the business and that’s the consumer side. The consumer doesn’t know any better as any type of marketing done by the lead aggregator typically won’t disclose that they charge contractors for leads but instead focus on how their service is free for homeowners. They boast that they do background checks and make sure the contractors are licensed, insured, etc to make the homeowner feel more comfortable with hiring someone they don’t know. As the homeowner goes to their website and completes their request for some type of service little do they know it is so on. The phone will ring off the hook, their inbox will be flooded, and it gets overwhelming because the contractors that got the lead are going to make the most of it because they are paying for it whether they get the job or not. It tends to scare off homeowners who just want to get some type of home improvement done and not have to talk to countless contractors. The bottom line is that the lead aggregator got paid multiple times for the single lead they sold to multiple people and they could care less who gets the job or if anyone gets it. Here’s the even more crazy part about all of this: some of the leads are so insane that you wouldn’t believe some of the ones I got to hear about but I will leave you with this one. One of the contractors I worked with called me directly one afternoon asking if it was all a joke. I said no, why and he proceeded to tell me that he had just paid for a lead wanting to add a room onto a trailer in a trailer court.

Lead aggregators probably have their place but I’m not sure where that is. As a business owner, you are already competing with your competitors so it makes little sense to pay more to do it in an arena you have little to no control over. Take control of your online presence and have people find you and your business for what you do, where you do it, and why you are different than your competitors. That’s what Web Force KC does for our clients.

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for effective web design and online marketing in the Kansas City area.

Home Web Design SEO Social Media Support Contact Us

June 12, 2020
What You DO and What You Are DOING

Photo credit Carl Heyerdahl

I’ve built quite a few websites over the years and have written thousands of blogs for my clients. When I first meet them and they decide to hire me, I initially found it difficult to explain what I was doing for them and why I was doing it. With web design it’s pretty cut and dried that they need a place for their potential customers to find them online, get in contact with them and/or get directions to their business but blogging is different. When I first started Web Force I struggled to explain in simple terms what on earth I was doing creating constant content but over time I realized that there is a simple way to do it so here it is.

Web Design and Content Marketing in Kansas City, MO

A website’s pages are quite simply what you DO, WHO you are, and WHERE you do it. Ideally, each page of a website should explain one component of what you do, what you sell, and why you do it better than your competition with the home page being a summary of everything you do or sell. That’s what you DO and your business likely does it all day, everyday which means that in most cases your website pages never really change much unless your business does. What you are DOING works a little bit different. Avenues like social media are a great way to show off what you are DOING like your latest projects, products, sales, or specials however using your website’s blog can make showing what you are DOING even more powerful. Unlike your website’s pages that are direct and to the point about what you do or sell, your blog posts can be used to show the lighter side of what you do, highlight seasonality in your products or services, flex your industry knowledge, discuss changes in your business or whatever you want so long as it’s relevant. As discussed in our previous blog, keeping your blog posts current and relevant will do wonders for you in terms of attracting the attention of the search engines and will keep your readers engaged as well. Personally, I treat every blog I write like I’m adding a page to a website only less structured and certainly less formal but nevertheless informative. The subject matter could be making light of something my clients see all too often that drives them nuts to something way out of left field like providing tips for smokers and vapers during the COVID-19 era. (FYI: I work with a lot of smoke and vape shops.) The point is that you can use your website to showcase what you DO while using your blog to show what you’re DOING and humanize your company so that your potential customers can get a glimpse of who you are and why they should do business with you. It’s tough to do at first but just like anything else, the more you do it the easier it becomes. Web Force KC builds websites that effectively showcase what businesses and do and what they doing. If you have questions about web design or using your blog as a tool, feel free to contact us.

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for web design and online marketing in Kansas City.

Home Web Design SEO Social Media Support Contact Us

May 21, 2020
The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again Of QR Codes

I’ve been a big fan of using QR codes in marketing strategies for many years. Ever since the smartphone became something that nearly everyone had in their pocket, the QR code has been a pretty nifty bridge to take you from the physical world as we know it to the magical land of the internet simply by pointing your phone at the black and white blocked squares. If memory serves me correct, the first REAL phone I owned was the G1 which was one of, if not the first phone to run Android by Google. The G1 amazingly enough had an app for scanning QR codes. At the time it was absolutely astounding to scan codes but there weren’t many ways to actually generate QR codes efficiently or free for that matter. Now you can spot QR codes on everything from Heinz Ketchup bottles and TV commercials to the trailer of a remodeling company and the invoices they send to their customers which should scream to you that they still work. In fact, today’s smartphones make it easier than ever to scan a QR code because all you need to do is open your phone’s camera and point whereas previously you needed an app that was almost always ad sponsored to scan.

Local Web Design and Online Marketing in Kansas City, MO

What’s interesting about QR codes is that they aren’t necessarily a new thing. In fact, they’ve been around for many years before the advent of smartphones or the widespread use of the internet as we know it today. QR codes are essentially bar codes but they are read quite differently and are capable of storing much more information. The first bar codes were developed in the 1960s in Japan where the country was experiencing huge economic growth, especially in retail industries. Grocery store cashiers, at the time, had to hand key in prices and products which is not only inefficient but it was also exhausting. Once in use, the bar code revolutionized product pricing, inventory management, and global commerce as we know it. However, the bar code was soon found to have limitations most specifically in the amount of information that could be stored with an individual code. A typical bar code could only store around 20 alphanumeric characters of information which isn’t a whole lot. Plus, a bar code can only be read in one direction (left to right) with a singular scanner device (today’s bar code scanners have since fixed this with more advanced scanning techniques). That’s where Denso Wave Incorporated enters the picture as they were already developing more advanced code reading capabilities that could store much more information than a simple bar code. The QR code they were developing could be scanned unidirectional meaning no matter which way it’s facing or which angle you’re scanning from, it can easily and flawlessly be read. As expected, it took many years and a ton of trial and error before it worked seamlessly. Fast forward to 1994 when the Denso Corporation finally released the QR code as we know it to the public in Japan which prompted the Japanese automobile industry to quickly integrate the codes into auto parts and production processes. They were immensely popular (mostly in Japan) but they soon faded away from the public eye until around 2002 when the explosion of smartphones allowed everyone to have a scanner in the palm of their hand. As everyone on the planet began to get their hands on every increasingly powerful smartphone devices, the use of the QR code rose as well. QR codes have been used on everything from coupons and security badges to airline boarding passes and so much more (just look around and you’ll likely find a QR code on something near you). QR codes seemed to disappear for a number of years especially for public use and applications but with the most recent smartphones equipped with a code scanner in their camera app, they have seen a huge resurgence. While you would think that inventing something as useful and globally used as the QR code would make the inventor insanely rich, the creator did in fact patent the code but opted to allow public use without restriction.

Today it’s pretty simple to create a custom QR code for businesses or for whatever. At Web Force KC, we use them to help our clients get better customer reviews, direct their customers to non-public pages on their websites, add to their social media presence, promote sales, and many more applications and functions that are easily accessible to anyone with a smartphone. We strive to find new and creative ways to use QR codes for our clients to help them grow their businesses.

If you enjoyed reading this blog, do us a favor and pull out your smartphone, open up your camera, point it at the QR code below, follow the link, and write a review for Web Force KC. We would appreciate it!

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for web design and online marketing in Kansas City.

Home Web Design SEO

Social Media Support Contact Us

May 8, 2020
New Business Starter Pack

Photo Credit Alex Holyoake

My daughter and I are total meme geeks and one of our favorites has always been the “starter pack.” If you’re not familiar with them I highly recommend you check them out as they are hilarious. The starter pack meme is usually a series of images that collaboratively represent a type of person or character but with less then complimentary intentions. Anyway, I had an old friend ask me about starting a new website for his wife who had recently lost her job and was opening up her own private practice. It made me think about how I really don’t have a starter pack for new business owners. I’m not going to get into extreme details but instead I thought that providing some basic insight on setting up a website as, in my humble opinion, it is the most effective way to get a business going and start generating revenue.

Local Online Marketing and Website Design in Kansas City, MO

Get a good name for your business. I’ve worked with countless businesses over the years that have the weirdest names and honestly it takes more work to effectively market them. My advise is to pick a name that has at least little bit to do with what your business actually does. Made up words that don’t make sense to people likely won’t make sense to the search engines either unless you pound brand based content repeatedly when you could be spending your online marketing time more productively like pushing keywords related to what your business does.

Get a good domain name (that isn’t too long). When my clients ask me to research domain names I tend to look for ones that contain what they do and where they do it. For instance, one of my clients recently added a new location in North Kansas City and wanted me to put a website together specifically for that location. He owns multiple smoke and vape shops but this location is the first in what KC people call the “Northland.” I ended up picking SmokeShopNorthKC.com as it not only is one of the main keywords (smoke shop) we will be going after with our SEO services but also where we will be pushing those keywords (in North KC). Don’t bang your head against the wall trying to find a domain name that does the SEO for you because you’ll never find it but do your best to pick one that makes sense, is short and to the point, and most importantly one that is easy to remember.

Photo Credit Taylor Vick

Get good hosting. If want to build a website, you’ll need a place to host it. Hosting is essentially renting space on someone’s server for the files that make up your website. Ideally you should host your website where you buy your domain name but it isn’t absolutely necessary. Check out the reviews on the hosting company because most of them suck to say the least. No offense but GoDaddy really sucks. I’ve had to deal with them for years and each time it’s a struggle to refrain from yelling and screaming at them. Plus, they like to nickle and dime your for every little thing which is just silly. Web Force KC can provide hosting and website security through our partnership with Just Host. We’ve worked with them for years and have never had any major problems especially when it comes to their support which is exceptional. The downtime is minimal which means that our clients’ websites rarely, if ever, are “down for maintenance” which is a good thing.

Have a professional write your website content. Nothing is worse than having terribly written content on a website. First, your potential customers can get annoyed really quick if your content is poor quality and end up bouncing off of your site to one of your competitors. Second, the search engines like rich, unique content that makes it crystal clear who you are, what you do, and where you do it. Content writers usually aren’t cheap but they do provide an invaluable service that make businesses money.

Photo Credit Christian Wiediger

Have good images. If you aren’t a photographer, no worries, you’re not alone. I’m by no means a great photographer and neither are most of my clients even though we have increasingly more powerful cameras on our phones. I’ve had clients that have held contests with their employees to take pictures which worked out pretty well but in the end nothing beats a professional photographer. There are many websites that offer free image downloads for any type of use including commercial use. DON’T USE PICTURES THAT AREN’T YOURS! Copyright infringement is real and can cost you a ton of money. (Trust us, we’re currently in the middle of suing a local business for stealing our images and content). We recommend checking out Unsplash.com for tons of great free images. In fact, we used UnSplash images for the blog you are currently reading and we think they look pretty damn good. You may not find exactly what you are looking for there but you can at the very least get some good ideas. If all else fails, go buy some stock photos.

Lastly, make sure your website makes sense. A website should allow users to get the information they need or get in contact with you quickly and easily otherwise they’ll go somewhere else. I can’t tell you how many times a website (or more specifically a web designer) over-complicated thing when the business offered a pretty simple service or product but made it almost impossible to actually get info, make a purchase, or get in contact with the company. Clean, simple, and user friendly always works.

At Web Force KC, our goal is and always has been to help our clients navigate the ever-changing world of the internet while helping them grow their business as well. Our common sense approach to web design, content creation and website hosting/security allows our clients to focus on running their business instead of worrying about the web.

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for local web design, SEO, and online marketing in Kansas City.

Home Web Design SEO Social Media Support Contact Us

April 30, 2020
Grab Your Piece Of The Pie

Photo Credit sheri silver

We like to think of the internet as an infinite landscape of information which is, for the most part, fairly accurate. The driving force behind the constant expansion of the web as we know it is content generated by its users and the largest indexing system our planet has ever seen making sense of it. Whether it’s uploading a video to YouTube, posting on Facebook, or writing and publishing a blog like the one you’re reading now, it is the content creators that make the the internet what it is and what it will be in the future. At Web Force KC, we write accessible, functional content for our clients that is designed to capture a portion of online searches for specific keywords in specific geographic locations.

Local SEO and Web Design Company in Kansas City, MO

In the broad scope of things, there are over 80,000 searches on Google per second on average which is astounding to consider but as a marketing company, we tend to focus more on the searches that concern our clients and more specifically for what they do and where they do it. Just as there is a finite number of Google searches per second, there is also a finite amount of searches for a specific service or product per second, per day, per month, and per year and when the focus is specifically on a certain geographic area, the numbers begin to quickly shrink and become more manageable. Whatever the number of searches is for your industry (or more accurately for what your business does or sells), the sum of the searches represent an uncut pie with pieces being distributed to businesses (your competitors) that show up prominently for that specific search in a specific area. Sound confusing? Think about this example: in the spring months in the Kansas City area, it’s not uncommon to see hundreds if not thousands of searches per day for lawn care, lawn and landscaping, or other services that homeowners are looking for to spruce up their yards. Because Web Force KC works with a local lawn and landscape company in the Kansas City area, we position their website as high as possible on the search engines for the keywords that we know will be searched for and in the locations that we want to be visible in. When successful, the fact is that some business’ websites will be dropped down in rankings on the search engines and become less visible as yours rises.

Ideally, you want to see more searches driven to your business online based on what you do (category, product, or service) as opposed to your business’ name.

That is how you take your piece of the pie (well, it’s not quite that simple but hopefully you get the point.) By creating rich, relevant content on various online mediums, we increase our clients’ visibility on the web to capture more and more of the pie over time. Unfortunately this isn’t something that happens overnight and it takes an enormous amount of work, consistency, and collaboration to make it happen. In fact we plan for months ahead on how, where, and what we want to be positioned for with all of our clients year round. The point is that there are only going to be a certain number of searches locally for lawn care services or for whatever it is that you do or sell and by making certain that our clients’ websites are visible, accessible, and make sense to potential customers that visit them, we take a good piece of the pie and make those searches become productive and profitable to a business. Positioning your business’ website for visibility will no doubt help add new customers that are searching for what you do or what you sell but ultimately you and your staff are responsible for converting them into actual revenue. Web Force KC helps small businesses put themselves, and more specifically their online presence, into the spotlight locally on search engines where their potential customers are already looking. Our content marketing strategy has proven time and time again to be successful at generating new business and helping our clients grow.

Call Web Force KC at (816) 462-9128 for local web design, SEO, and online marketing in Kansas City.

Home Web Design SEO Social Media Support Contact Us

April 24, 2020