Google responded to this paradigm shift some years ago with Google Maps included in the search results.  The most recent change was to divide Google Maps into Google Maps and Google Places.  A Google Place is almost a mini website where the owner can modify content to fully represent their business or organization including even pictures and videos and associate it with a geographical place. The ‘Place’ will often come up in a search result when the searcher is naming a particular city or geographical area such as “philly cheese steak in kansas city” or “daycare in kansas city”.

Google Map/Place Example

Most people are familiar with the map and the A, B, C… stickpins that appear in these kinds of results.  These maps are said to get 25% of the clicks that will happen on any page they appear on, and that percentage is growing.

As of last month, July 2010, it looks like Google is responding once again to the growing interest level for local search and is currently testing a new layout for geographically targeted search requests. The new format can be seen on a blog from Frank Reed. If this new layout tests well, the significance that the Google Places listing has will grow tremendously.  If you haven’t taken the time to claim your listing, NOW is the time to do so!

Looking at the new layout, most people won’t even realize that the traditional organic listings space has now become an extended Google Places space.  Organic listings have be where 60% of the clicks come from on pages where maps were also present. Google Places will look a lot like organic listings to a lot of people if this layout becomes standard.  If that’s the case, just having a well organized Google Place will get you first page on Google for all the searches that include a ‘geo target’.  That’s HUGE!

It will be interesting to see where Google comes down on these tests because a huge revenue generator for Google is Sponsored Listings, aka – Adwords.  Currently only 15% of the clicks happen in this space on the page.  Will the evolution of Google Places shrink that percentage even further?  Will Google Places become a source of revenue to Google in the future?  Already you can purchase a nice bright yellow TAG for your Google Place, suggesting that Google just may start charging ‘rent’ for your Place.

For now, Places are FREE at Google, claim’em while you can, for no money down and zero rent!

If business owners who are poorly situated on the search engines wait until the economy picks up before they invest in their ranking, they are going to miss all the first business that comes when things start to move again.  They will also compromise their market position as their competitors gain momentum early and start moving ahead in the marketplace.

Search engine optimization takes time, it’s not an over-night fix. Smart business owners will make the online marketing investment NOW in order to be better positioned THEN. furthermore, prices for search engine marketing is relatively less expensive now because fewer people are in the game. (Most are “waiting until business picks up”!)  When business picks up, LOTS of people want to be ranking well and that drives up the cost of getting the ranked… (High demand for SEO services ensue)

Smart people buy now when it’s relatively cheap and the competition is light. Everyone else waits and then plays catch-up later at a higher costs…

Here are a few trends and examples of “meet the team” pages. One trend worth mentioning is the most popular:

1. Employee photos.

One idea for employee photos is to make custom avatars – like we did on Adcuda’s site. This is a great way to let an employee’s personality shine through while keeping the design professional and consistent. Our team page holds a little biographical line beside each employee photo – We like to show our creative personalities by sounding not-so-serious on our about page.

2. Social Media Links

As you know there are many professionals out there that have linkedin, facebook and twitter accounts. Why not have your potential clients connect with your employees? It is a great way to lead your clients to current events/thoughts and it builds strong relationships. Before doing this, make sure your employee’s content is appropriate. You do not want to damage your company’s reputation. There is also a way to add in a team member’s latest tweet to the page next to their profile. What fun!

3. Expanded profiles

While many sites only include basic information about each of the team, others include extended profile info. this is done through the uses of pop up windows, sliders, new pages, etc. Extended info is a geat way to give clients more insight into the employees behind a company. The simpler the layout, the more effective. You do not want to bombard your prospective clients with too much info – but it is nice to include info like “our story” or “what we bring to the table”

Here are some visual examples:

Th_nk

Blue Sky Resumes

MW Design Interactive

nGen Works

glue Isobar

Etsy

kudos smashing magazine

I tend to think of those that are a joy to work with. The groups that come to mind first, understand the benefits of what we do; they are proud to work with us and often tell their friends and colleagues about our shared successes and they are people I truly enjoy getting to know. We root for them and get so excited to review their reporting. We like to brag about what they do well and we do it a lot!

When you think of your favorite clients, what do they have in common? Are they from a similar industry? Common company size?Were they referrals from the same source? Identifying these commanlities can help you to hone in on your ideal client.

Isn’t everyone my ideal client you ask?! Don’t we want to sell as much as possible, to as many people as we can?

Sure, that would be fantastic. And would totally help fund the trip to Iceland I’ve been planning.  But not everyone is your ideal client.

What about the client that continually shops your service around every couple of months or the customer who really doesn’t understand the benefit of your product or the one that lives too far away and often cancels at the last minute? Are these people really the best match for your company? Will you have a long term relationship? Or will it fizzle out at the end of a contract?

The closer you get to identifying your ideal client, the better you can cultivate your marketing plan. Who are these people? What services or products are they looking for? Where can I find them?

Once you become more specific about who your ideal client is, the easier it will be to attract them.

So, who is your ideal client? Think about it and write it down. Now tell people. Start with us…maybe we know them.

This week was the perfect time to reorganize my scheduling and actually manage how I received new work orders, because we’ve now expanded into larger offices (merrily nicknamed ‘the Dungeon’)! Although my new desk is a tempting clean slate for post-its, we here at Adcuda have streamlined our workflow.

A fancy gadget called a Customer Support Ticket System is how we are going to queue our projects, and a shoutout to Zendesk for being the free trial that won us over. This great website allows our clients (and us) to have a record of the services required, plus it saves the designer (me) the ‘oops’ factor of writing down something wrong, say the exact model number or color of a car that needs to be front and center of an email going out in two days! It will ease the stress of second-guessing, and everyone involved will see exactly when their projects will be done. Now I can free up my mind from worrying and focus on the important things, like designing killer emails.