In this article, I will explain how you are driving customers away from your business and making sales for the competition. I will be building on the terms and concepts from my previous article, “Your Company Needs a Website” about the importance of having a website for your business, so click here and give that a read first if you feel lost.
Do you know how much money your business is losing by advertising for the competitors in your industry? I bet you just thought that I was nuts for suggesting that you are actually paying for other companies to siphon your customers away, right? If you do not have an effective website and online branding presence, that is exactly what is happening. Your hard work and success is costing you customers and earning profits for other companies. All of this has been happening for a long time and it won’t stop until you take control of your business online.
Your potential customers spend hours every day using Google, social media and other search platforms. These services are full to the brim with data, but where does it all come from? There is far too much data for humans to process or enter into a database by hand. Well, Search companies use web robots to aggregate the near endless supplies of data and serve it to their visitors in the form of search results.
These autonomous robots are responsible for populating most of the generic profiles on business directory websites. Those are the same profiles that clog up the search results of customers that are looking for information on your business. The robots attempt to locate the best available information about your business from multiple sources. Unfortunately, this information may be out of date or flat out wrong and rarely casts a positive light on your products or services and only serves to confuse customers. Worst of all, directory websites are advertising the competition to your customers while they are looking for your business.
You did not misread that last part. Companies that operate business directories and review websites earn a commission by sending your customers into the arms of the competition. Customers searching for your company may only find these generic directory profiles that highlight your competitors while listing incomplete or incorrect information about your business.
Are you angry yet? This is the only the tip of the iceberg when you do not control your online presence and reputation. Think about what you could do with those extra profits that are being stolen and sent to your competitors. You would be able to reinvest in your business, hire more employees or spend more time with your family. The online reputation and internet marketing efforts of your company are just as important to your bottom line as your word of mouth advertising. I would say your online reputation is even more important because it will live online forever for the world to see.
There is a solution to this problem. It will take some work and you may need a little help, but we are here if you need us. Call One Tech is available to advise you on the best course of action to better represent your business online. We are also ready to completely manage the online marketing and reputation of your business or handle all of your web design needs.
In the next article, we take a deep dive into some real-world search results. I will demonstrate what a customer will see while searching for a company that has a poor online marketing and brand presence. We have spent enough time with the theory and we will look at real work examples of how these websites steal customers and income.
