Even impulse buying needs a ‘pain’. A ‘pain’ is a need or desire that your customer wants to ease. It may be the need to fix a leaky faucet or it may be the desire to own a ‘cute’ object. With impulse buying, this desire may be completely physiological but this doesn’t make it less real. However, without the ‘pain’ there is no sale.

For your website to succeed you first need to attract customers that have a need for your product. Then you must tell them how your product will ease their pain.

A corollary to easing a ‘pain’ is the ‘pain’ must exist NOW. A website for a service, such as a plumber, will only make a sale when the customer has need of at plumber.

For many service sites there is always the problem that the customer may not find the site WHEN they need it. Traditionally, the companies providing these services kept there name before the public by sponsoring community event and taking out advertising in the community papers and buying a spot in the ‘Yellow Pages’

In the age of the Internet — THIS STILL WORKS. However, there are other things you can do to enhance your name recognition within a community or geographic area:

• Make sure you appear on the first page of Google Local search
• Make sure you are on the first page of results for geo targeted Google/Yahoo/Bing searches
• Exchange banner ad links with targeted local businesses

Google Local Search shows up in two places, in a map search and in a general geo-targeted search. Placing well in the local search does not require a huge website. A search for ‘plumber in the bronx’ gives the first place position to Pat Sementa Plumbing Heating & Cooling — You would be hard pressed to find a simpler website. Before you can get to this spot, however, you must make sure you business is registered in Google Local Search. To help things along – put your address in the footer of each page on your website.

Getting to the first page on the search engines results page (SERP) is more of a challenge. On the bright side not too many small business sites are doing it. Therefore, even a modicum of search engine optimization (SEO) can yield suprising results. Even the basics such as a unique title tag and description can go a long way in getting that fist page SERP. Again, Pat Sementa Plumbing Heating & Cooling, is a prime example. This site has secured its SERP by default as there is no SEO.

This is an old idea that has received a new impetus with Googles recently announced link exchange. In our plumber example, the business owner may exchange business banner ads with a local site selling washing machines or installing kitchen counters. By targeting advertising to complimentary sites, you can get more exposure and name recognition.

Contact us to find out how TIMR Web Services can help your business