LancasterPA.com Users Guide

Thank you for promoting your business on LancasterPA.com!

This Users Guide isn’t selling anything. It is simply designed to help you get the most from your participation with us. Below is information on how we can make your current ad(s), your free listings, and your free business page more effective. Plus, it includes additional ways we can help promote your business through this website.

We sincerely want you to get the greatest exposure you can here. However, many customers don’t fully take advantage of the free bonus services we offer, and therefore they don’t receive all the benefits this website can give them.

Get the Most Out of Your Photo Ads

On each category page we offer Feature Image Ads at the very top of the page followed by Large Photo Ads (vertical ads), then Small Photo Ads (horizontal), and finally the Link-Only Listings. The Photo Ads rotate on a 30-day schedule so each ad has a turn near the top of their particular section each month.

Critique the images in your ads. You can use different images for each ad if you prefer. Feature Image Ad sizes are 1000 x 425 pixels, Large Ads are 600 x 400, and Small Ads 600 x 400 minimum. Home Page Ads are 284 x 177. Gallery size (for the business page) 851 x 567. We cannot accept a smaller size. Please send us .jpg images, not .pdf. We can crop your image to the correct size.

Also, critique your ad copy in each of your Large and Small ads. You can include 45-50 words in your description for each ad. If you have more than one ad, you can include a different description for each ad. It is important that your descriptions are relevant to the page upon which they appear. You want to promote your key features and give the reader reason to want to learn more. (If you would like our help in writing an ad, please contact us.)

We can expand your title line for every one of your ads and listings by adding a short descriptive phrase to grab more attention. You can have up to two lines for Large Ads and Listings, and one line for Small Ads. Here are a couple examples:

Bounce Kraze – Fun Indoor Inflatable Park and Arcade
Kings Amish Furniture – Quality Amish Furniture
Laserdome – Laser Tag, Arcade, and High-Tech Fun
Morr Range – Indoor Shooting Range & Training
Old Country Store – Quilts & Fabrics in Intercourse, PA

Please also review our links to your website from each ad, listing, and your business page to make sure, in each case, that we are linking to the correct page on your website.

Get the Most Out of Your Free Link-Only Listings

We want to include a free link to your business on every relevant page throughout our site so you get the widest possible exposure. These listings appear on pages where you do not already have an ad. They include your name, address, phone number, a 15-20 word description, and a link to your website. Your description should be relevant to the page upon which it appears. You can use a different 15-20 word description for each page if that helps to better describe your business. There is no charge for these additional links.

Also, be sure to review the other category pages we have on our website that might relate to your business.

We are continually adding new site pages to help our customers be seen by our site visitors. If you have a suggestion for a page topic that would be helpful to you, please let us know.

Free Link Buttons

A free add-on feature for Large and Small ads and your Link-Only Listings are our link buttons. These eye-catching buttons make it easier for your potential customers to quickly find the information they want. Where appropriate, these can link to any of the following pages on your website:

Videos
Reviews
Map / Location / Directions
Rates or Reservations Page
Business Hours
Menu
Events
Coupon (At an extra charge.)

Your Free Business Page

Ads on our website are limited to a 45-50 word description. However, we also give you a free business page on LancasterPA.com (a $400 value) where you can say far more about your business features and your products or services than you can in any one ad.

Plus, your business page is one more web page that can be picked up by the search engines to promote your business. And you can control the content of this page so it promotes your brand the way you prefer.

The goal of this page is to help drive traffic to your website. Many of our customers get more clicks from this page than from any one of their individual ads. Therefore, make sure your business page is up to date and shares your most important information with our site visitors. This business page is important to your success with us.

Don’t say too much! This page should not compete with your website, but help promote it. We suggest you include brief teasers highlighting your unique features, products, or services, then include links to the appropriate pages on your website where visitors can find more details. If you say too much on this page, they will have less need to visit your website. Just try to arouse their curiosity, and link to your website where they can learn more.

There is no limit to how many words you give us. But, again, you want to just tell enough about each item to build interest, then link them to your website to find all the details.
Tell who you are and how you can help viewers. Highlight multiple aspects of your business. Share a short overview of your most important features or services or products. Sell who you are, why you are special, and why they should buy from you. Also, include links to the appropriate pages on your website where they can find more detailed info.
Include topical headings to make it easy for viewers to scan your content.
Avoid including hours or dates on this page. If these are not kept current, that could hurt you. Instead, include links to the appropriate page(s) on your website where your current hours or dates are listed.
The content of this page should be unique, not wording copied from another page online. (Google can penalize websites that have duplicate content.)
Please avoid superlatives, such as ‘the best’ or ‘the most popular’. (Please do not include any claims that you can’t substantiate.)
Your business page can include one large feature image (705 x 300 pixels) and five medium-sized images (600 x 400 pixels wide). Please send .jpg’s, not Microsoft Word images.
You can also include a video on this page
Please let us know if you want to include an email address or a “contact” link.
The best part is this page is FREE!
We reserve the right to edit this page if necessary, or to add regional information to the page that might be helpful to site visitors.

If you work with a marketing agency, you may want to pass this along for them to review.

Free Promotion of Your Special Events

Our Events Calendar is one of the most popular sections of our website. Site visitors want to know what is going on This Month in Lancaster County and in the coming months. Our Events Calendar serves that purpose.

Whether you host concerts, weekend events, seasonal sales, or other special events, we can promote them for free. Just go to our Submit Your Event page and send us the details of your event. Then be sure to send Jen an email (Jen@LancasterPA.com) to let her know that you submitted your event. With sufficient advance notice, we will try to include your event in the Events Calendar.

Additional Free Promotional Services

Free Social Media Promotions

We have multiple Facebook pages as well as Twitter and Instagram accounts with tens of thousands of fans. We use these to promote our customers and LancasterPA.com as a whole. We often post photos of member businesses to give our customers free additional exposure. These attract a lot of interest. We also promote coupons, events, and other items of interest.

Blog Posts

Get noticed in our blog. Send us an article and images to promote what’s going on at your business. Or, submit other information that our site visitors might enjoy or find helpful. This will provide free exposure for you, and these posts will also be promoted on our social media pages. These must be original posts, not copies of other posts or publications. And there are limits on how frequently any one company can submit free posts.

Cross-Promotion on Other Site Pages

We are always looking for ways to give you added exposure on LancasterPA.com. Currently, we are testing ways to cross-promote customer businesses on the business pages of other nearby non-competitive businesses. Early results seem to show increased click-throughs as a result. This additional exposure for you is also free.

Offer Additional Value to Your Own Website Visitors

Add value for your own customers and prospects when they visit your own website. We invite you to include in your website links to our Events Calendar so your guests can see what is going in Lancaster County in the months ahead. We also offer our This Month in Lancaster page that highlights current and upcoming events in the next few weeks.

You can also include a link on your website to our Things To Do page, Restaurants page, Lancaster Lodging page, Amish pages, or any of a number of other topical pages on our site that might give your customers a better understanding of the wide variety of things to see and do throughout Lancaster County.

Free Analytics for Your Website

No other advertising medium can give you the statistics to determine if your advertising is really working for you like the Internet can. And the way to access to that data is through the free Google Analytics program.

Do you want to know which websites actually drive traffic to your website and which only say that they do? Use Google Analytics. Even if you have an Internet marketing company working for you, Google Analytics will provide information you should know about your own website. Ask your web designer or SEO company to help you access this program (they may already have it operating for your website). Or, contact us for details.

For WordPress websites, here is a video tutorial to help you set up Google Analytics on your site: http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-install-google-analytics-in-wordpress/ (We use the Monster Insights option.)

Review Each of Our Links to Your Website

Please review our links to your website from each ad, listing, and throughout your business page to make sure, in each case, we are linking to the correct page on your website. (For example, we don’t want to link to a sub-page on your website if you want all links to go to your home page.)

Please Let Us Know if Your Website Changes

If your website or web page URL’s change, please let us know so we can update our links to your site. Often our customers hire a web designer who overhauls their website, and in the process changes the URL’s of their website pages. Then we discover that our links to their website no longer link to a valid web page and the web design company foolishly did not include redirects in their site revisions. We want our web traffic to easily find its way to you. Therefore, please let us know when your website is updated.

Critique How Well Your Ads Do On LancasterPA.com

We want to help you get the most value for your investment with us. Through Google Analytics we can now help you to critique which pages on LancasterPA.com (and therefore which of your ads) are sending the most visitors to your website and to your business page. Through this analysis, you will be able to see which pages on our site might offer opportunities for you to reach more customers and which ads might be under-performing. This service is also free.

Summary

We hope you sense from this Users Guide that we are serious about wanting to do the very best we can for you and for each of our customers. Please don’t just consider us a vendor who sells ads. We are more than that. Consider us your Free Online Marketing Consultant who wants to help you get the widest exposure possible before our audience of 1.2 million annual site visitors.

If you don’t have a list of your current ads, listings, and business page, please contact us and we’ll get it to you.

Also, your input (and criticisms!) can help us serve you better. We sincerely welcome your suggestions.

Thanks again for allowing us the privilege of promoting your business!

Blessings!

Please contact us if you have any questions:

Gordy Harrower Gordy@LancasterPA.com

Peter Harrower Peter@LancasterPA.com

Jen Lewis Jen@LancasterPA.com

LancasterPA.com Users Guide