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Boost Your Business Part 2: Easy Steps to Get More Google Reviews with a Custom Business Card

In today’s digital age, online reviews play a crucial role in shaping the reputation and success of businesses. Positive Google reviews not only build credibility but also attract more customers to your doorstep. So, how can you make it easier for your satisfied customers to leave glowing reviews? The answer lies in a simple yet powerful strategy: custom business cards. 

In our previous blog post, we showed you how to get a shareable Google Business review link and how to turn that link into a QR code using Bitly. 

Now, we’re going to show you how to leverage the power of Canva to create custom business cards with your Google review link that drives even more Google reviews to your business.

Why Google Reviews Matter

Before we dive into the tutorial, let’s briefly discuss why Google reviews are so important for businesses. 

  1. Credibility: Positive reviews from satisfied customers build trust and credibility in the eyes of potential customers.
  2. Visibility: Higher review ratings and greater numbers of reviews can improve your business’s visibility in Google search results.
  3. Customer Acquisition: A strong reputation with positive reviews can significantly influence a customer’s decision to choose your business over competitors.

Now that we understand the importance of Google reviews, let’s get started with the tutorial!

Sharing Made Easy With a Custom Review Card

These cards not only serve as a reminder for customers to leave feedback but also make it incredibly convenient for them to do so. By incorporating a QR code linked directly to your Google review page, you’re simplifying the process for your customers, ultimately increasing the likelihood of them leaving a positive review.

Let’s explore how you can create and utilize these custom review cards to further enhance your online reputation and attract more customers to your business.

Step 1: Designing Your Custom Business Card in Canva

Canva is a user-friendly design platform that offers a wide range of templates for various purposes, including business cards. Here’s how to create your custom business card:

  1. Open Canva: Sign in to your Canva account or create one if you haven’t already.
  2. Select a Business Card Template: Browse through Canva’s selection of business card templates and choose one that fits your style and branding.
  3. Customize Your Design: Add your logo, contact information, and any other branding elements to personalize your business card.
  4. Adding the Bitly QR Code: Now, it’s time to generate a Bitly QR code linked to your Google review page. Head over to Bitly and follow the instructions to create a QR code linked directly to your Google review page, or watch our tutorial here.
  5. Incorporate the QR Code: Once you have your QR code, add it to your business card design in Canva. Ensure that it’s placed prominently and is easily scannable.

Step 2: Printing and Distribution

  1. Printing: You can print your business cards at home if you have the necessary equipment, or use a professional printing service for a high-quality finish.

2. Strategic Distribution: Make sure to leave your custom business cards at your checkout counter, include them in packaging, or hand them out during events or networking opportunities. The key is to make them readily available to your customers.

Ready, Set, Go Get Those Reviews!

By following these simple steps, you can create custom business cards that not only represent your brand but also serve as powerful tools for boosting your Google reviews. Remember, the more accessible and user-friendly you make the review process for your customers, the more likely they are to leave positive feedback.

So, what are you waiting for? Start designing your custom business cards today and watch as your Google reviews soar, bringing in more customers and growing your business’s reputation.

If you found this tutorial helpful, don’t forget to share it with others who might benefit from it. 

Stay tuned to our blog for more tips and tricks to help you succeed in the digital world.

Happy designing and here’s to more glowing Google reviews for your business!

How to Whitelist an Email Address in Google: A Simple Guide

It is important to whitelist an email address so that important emails don’t end up in the spam or junk folder.

Gmail, Google’s email service, makes it quick and simple to put an email address on a whitelist. By adding an email address to the whitelist, you can ensure that all emails from that address will be delivered to your inbox.

Be aware, whitelisting an email address in Gmail does not guarantee that all emails from that address will be delivered to your inbox. Gmail’s spam filter is constantly evolving and may still mark some emails as spam. However, whitelisting an email address can significantly increase the chances of receiving those important emails.

Understanding Whitelisting

Whitelisting is a way of allowing emails from certain senders to get through spam filters and reach your mailbox directly. This is useful if you want to make sure that emails from individuals you know and trust always reach you, even if they contain potentially spam-like information.

When you whitelist an email address, you are telling your email provider that you trust that sender and want to receive their emails. This is really important for businesses that rely on email for communication with clients or customers, as important emails can sometimes be miss marked as spam and never reach their intended recipient.

Just remember, whitelisting doesn’t stop spam. Even if you have whitelisted some senders, hackers and scammers can still send emails through. It can, however, be a good approach to prevent unintentional rejection of those important client emails.

You can whitelist an email address in Google by adding the sender’s email address to your Contacts list or by creating a filter that allows their emails to bypass the spam filter. By doing so, you can relax knowing that emails from that source always arrive in your mailbox, even if they include potentially spam-like content.

Accessing Your Google Account Settings

To whitelist an email address in Google, you need to access your Google account settings. Here’s how:

  1. Open your web browser and go to Google.
  2. Click on the “Sign in” button located at the top-right corner of the page.
  3. Enter your Google account email address and password, then click on the “Sign in” button.

Once you are signed in, click on the “Google apps” button located at the top-right corner of the page.

From the drop-down menu, click on the “Gmail” icon.

You are now in your Gmail account inbox and ready to start whitelisting emails.

Creating a New Contact

The fastest way to whitelist an email address in Gmail is by simply adding the sender to your contact list. 

To do this, go to your inbox and hover over an email from the person whose email address you wish to add to your whitelist. When a person + icon appears in the top-right corner of the new tab, click and select “Add [sender] to Contacts.” This will add the sender’s email address to your contacts list and allow you to receive emails from them.

Navigating to the Filters and Blocked Addresses Tab

The other way to prevent emails from being sent to spam is to go to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab in your Gmail settings following these quick steps:

  1. In your Gmail inbox, click on the gear icon located at the top-right corner of the page.
  2. From the drop-down menu, click on “Settings” and select “See All Settings”.
  3. Click on the “Filters and Blocked Addresses” tab, which is located near the top of the page.

You will now see your Gmail account settings page, where you can whitelist an email address through filters.

Overall, navigating to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab in Google is a straightforward process that can help users better manage their email. Now, you are ready to create a new filter.

Creating a New Filter

Instead of just creating a new contact, you can create a new filter for keeping essential emails. By following these simple steps, users can ensure that important messages are never missed or marked as spam.

Entering the Desired Email Address

Now that you are in the “Filters and Blocked Addresses” tab, click on the “Create a new filter” tab.

In the “From” field, enter the email address that you want to whitelist. If you want to whitelist multiple email addresses, separate them with a comma, and continue to add to your list.

Selecting the Right Criteria

Once you have entered the desired email address, you can select the guidelines for the filter. You can choose to apply the filter to all incoming emails, or you can specify certain criteria such as keywords, subject lines, or attachment types.

For example, if you only want to whitelist emails from a certain sender with a specific subject line, you can enter those standards in the appropriate fields. You can also choose what action to take with the emails that meet the filter criteria, such as marking them as important or archiving them.

By creating a new filter with the desired email address and specifications, you can ensure that any important emails will not be sent to spam.

Choosing the Never Send to Spam Option

Now that you’ve created a new filter with the email address and criteria, you can also simply check the box “Never send it to Spam” without needing to select any other parameters.

Saving the Filter

After selecting the “Never send it to Spam ” option, or other criteria, click on the “Create filter” button to save the filter. This will ensure that all future emails from the whitelisted email address are delivered to the inbox.

We hope you have a better understanding of how whitelisting an email address in Google is an easy process that can help increase the likelihood that important emails from important clients are not missed. 

Again, we want to point out that whitelisting an email address does not guarantee that all emails from that address will be delivered to the inbox, but it is a great step to take.

Need more help?

Let us handle the important marketing details so you can focus on running a successful painting company! Email si@iftsdesign.com to find out more!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for House Painting Companies in 2023: Help Your Brand Stand Out In The Search Results (SERPs) Part 2

Last time, we talked about how to get your local SEO and business listings right.

In this post, we will discuss blogging for SEO, link building and citations and the importance of reviews.

Strategy 3 – Blogging for SEO: Engaging Audiences through Intelligent Content Marketing Approaches

For local painting businesses looking to increase their online presence and attract new customers, blogging can be a very effective tool. 

By creating informative content that aligns with your industry expertise, you’ll position yourself as a thought leader in the eyes of potential clients. With proper execution, this strategy will improve both your search engine rankings and overall digital marketing efforts.

SEO Blogging Tips and Tricks

As a painting business owner, you understand the importance of staying up to date with current events in your area and industry trends.  You will want to create specific content that targets local areas and is still engaging for readers.

How can you do this?

  • Use relevant keywords targeted at your location
  • Solve a problem that your potential client may have

Here are a few examples of good blog ideas for painting companies:

  1. From Start to Finish – A Complete Walkthrough of Painting Your House Exterior in [Your Town Name]
  2. What Color Should I Choose for the Best Resale Value? A Guide to the Most Popular Colors in [Your Town Name] for [Year]
  3. Paint Finishes – Which Finish to Choose for Your Room and Why
  4. Choosing a House Painter in [You Town Name] – What Should You Look For & What Are the Red Flags?
  5. Remodeling Your Kitchen? A Complete Timeline of What to Expect

Blogging for Brand Awareness

Blogging extends beyond mere search engine optimization for your website. Through crafting content on industry-relevant subjects, you can connect with a broader audience in your target market and cultivate credibility for your brand. 

By offering valuable and insightful articles, you foster customer loyalty and amplify recognition of your corporate identity.  This way, when someone in your area is ready to paint, they already know who to choose – YOU!

Strategy 4 – Link Building and Secondary Citations

Google’s ranking algorithm considers numerous factors to determine the order in which websites appear in search results. While the exact details of the algorithm are closely guarded, one key element when determining rankings is backlinks and citations.

Building Backlinks

The number and quality of links from other reputable websites to your site, known as backlinks, plays a crucial role. Google views these as a vote of confidence in your content’s credibility and authority. The more quality backlinks your website has, the more relevant it will be seen by the search engines.

Some easy ways to get backlinks to your website:

  • Join your local Chamber of Commerce (make sure your profile is filled out completely)
  • Join a BNI group (make sure your profile is filled out completely)
  • Activate “Creator Mode” in LinkedIn and add a link to your website in the profile
  • Add a link to your website in your YouTube Channel’s profile
  • Check to see if your college alumni association allows links in your alumni profile and link to your business from there

Building Citations

Citations are an essential component of local search optimization. They involve mentioning your business name, address or phone number on third party websites without linking directly to it. 

While citations may not have the same impact as links, they still play a crucial role in improving rankings by increasing brand awareness and credibility among customers and other businesses alike. 

One tool that can help you build your citations is called Yext.  You input your information once and it distributes this information to over 75 different directories.  IFTS is currently running a special on this service for $50/month. 

Interested?  Contact si@iftsdesign.com to get started.

Strategy 5 – Reviews: Improve Your Reputation By Getting More Positive Reviews

Though the exact number is not known, reviews are estimated to account for about 40% of Google’s local ranking algorithm.  This makes reviews extremely important to your painting company, or any local service business!

The more positive reviews that you have, the more favorably Google should look upon your Google Business Profile listing.  Typically, people like to see a company have a 4-star reputation or higher.

Obviously, the best way to get reviews is to do the best job for your clients, so they are positively bursting to tell others how amazing you are.

Sometimes, it’s not that easy.  So, setting up processes to get reviews is a good idea.

A few processes that you can put in place:

  • Create review links in your email signatures
  • Have a review email sequence that goes out after the final walk through
  • Use a QR code on a business card that your employees use to ask for reviews
  • Offer an incentive (which they must disclose) to get a review
  • Create a page on your site that allows them to submit reviews

To see a step-by-step guide of how to set up a review process, check out this blog post from IFTS.

Conclusion – Start Putting SEO into Place Today For Your Painting Business

The rise in internet usage has made it crucial for local businesses to invest in quality SEO services and market their brand within their area. 

With more people turning online when searching for products or services, this is no longer an option but a necessity if you want your house painting company to thrive.

To remain competitive in today’s digital landscape, implementing an effective local SEO strategy is crucial for businesses. This approach will attract more customers and give you the edge over your competition. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to grow, so start today!

Need help getting started with this?

Let us handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on running a successful painting company! Email si@iftsdesign.com to find out more!