If you’ve received a phone call that begins with “Hi, I’m calling from Google…”, it is highly likely you are the target of a scammer. Often these calls are from third-party companies trying to scam small businesses by offering to improve a business’s Google Search rankings for a fee, charging money to provide services that Google actually offers for free. I get them all the time, and just this morning, which inspired me to organize these thoughts. Sometimes these scammers threaten to remove the company’s listing from Google Search and Google Maps unless they pay for search optimization servi ..read more

While many small business owners come to Zen Marketing for a new website, one of the marketing areas where we have recently seen increased interest is marketing collateral. Senior management has a heightened sense of the importance of coming out of COVID-19 stronger and better positioned for growth. These managers have approached Zen Marketing to ensure the sales team collateral reflects the organization’s value propositions appropriately. Many companies are beginning to feel more comfortable sending their sales team into the world to meet with prospects and clients. But even those relying on ..read more

We’ve previously written about How to Write Content in Times of Upheaval and wanted to follow in that trend. But what is a good idea in these trying times or the future? We will show you four ways to generate effective content ideas below. 1. Ask Questions Get into a problem-solving frame of mind before you start generating ideas for content. Your goal is to solve a problem your current or future customers may have. You are looking for the questions they want to answer. In fact, we’ve previously written about writing content for answers. In this instance, you are thinking about the questions ..read more