The Marketing Crowd

11/05/2026

Here are 3 tips to help you get found high up in Google local search results.



🎯 1. Ensure you have a Google Business profile

When someone searches using the name of a town or county e.g. for "hairdresser in Ennis" or "plumber in Kerry", a map appears at the top of the results showing local businesses. Those listings are Google Business Profiles and if you don't have one, you simply won't appear there.

It is completely free to have one but in a recent live Zoom course I ran a poll and 57% of participants didn't have one and another 21% didn't know if they did or not. If you would like to set one up simply do a search for “setup google business profile”. Then login and click the button "Add a new business" and follow the instructions.


🎯 2. Make sure you choose the right categories for your profile.

Google uses your primary category and 9 other secondary categories as one of its main signals for deciding whether to show your profile when someone searches. So if you are a Florist and you have set your primary category as "wedding service" you won't appear very high when people search for Florists in your town / category.

You can check what primary category your competitors are using by clicking on their profiles in Google. You can also go to Chat GPT and tell it your type of business and location and ask it to recommend the Google Business Profile categories you should use. It will recommend what primary category you should use and which secondary ones.


🎯 3. Find your review link

Reviews are one of the biggest factors in how Google decides which profiles to show. But asking customers to "leave a review on Google" and expecting them to find the right place to leave a review is where most businesses lose people.

Instead, go into your Google Business Profile, click "Ask for Reviews", and copy the direct link it gives you. When you send that link to a customer, it takes them straight to the review box. Nobody gets lost and that can significantly increase the number of reviews you get.



Hope you found these tips useful

All the best

Evan

05/05/2026

Only a few spaces left on this course ...

Want your business to appear on Google — but not sure where to start?



If SEO feels confusing, this beginner-friendly course breaks it down in a simple, practical way.



In this Search Engine Optimisation: A Beginner’s Guide, you’ll learn how to:
✔ Understand how search engines rank your website
✔ Identify what’s holding your site back
✔ Improve your chances of appearing on page one
✔ Track your performance and measure what’s working

SEO doesn’t have to be overwhelming — with the right knowledge, small changes can make a big impact on your visibility and traffic.



💡 Perfect for small business owners, beginners or anyone looking to grow their online presence.

👉 Book your place here:
https://www.localenterprise.ie/clare/training-events/online-bookings/search-engine-optimisation-a-beginners-guide-may-2026.html

28/04/2026

A few places left on this course ...

Want your business to appear on Google — but not sure where to start?

If SEO feels confusing, this beginner-friendly course breaks it down in a simple, practical way.

In this Search Engine Optimisation: A Beginner’s Guide, you’ll learn how to:
✔ Understand how search engines rank your website
✔ Identify what’s holding your site back
✔ Improve your chances of appearing on page one
✔ Track your performance and measure what’s working
SEO doesn’t have to be overwhelming — with the right knowledge, small changes can make a big impact on your visibility and traffic.

💡 Perfect for small business owners, beginners or anyone looking to grow their online presence.

👉 Book your place here:
https://www.localenterprise.ie/clare/training-events/online-bookings/search-engine-optimisation-a-beginners-guide-may-2026.html

24/04/2026

Some spaces left on this AI bootcamp I am delivering for LEO Clare. It covers all the latest in Chat GPT, Gemini and AI for image creation and editing. (Evan)

AI is changing the way businesses market themselves — are you keeping up?

This AI for Digital Marketing Bootcamp (2-Part Course) will show you how to use AI tools in a simple, practical way to improve your marketing and save time.

Across two sessions, you’ll learn how to:
✔ Create social media content faster and more effectively
✔ Use AI to generate ideas for blogs, emails and website content
✔ Understand how tools like ChatGPT can support your marketing strategy
✔ Simplify your workflow and boost productivity

Designed for beginners, this course breaks down AI in a way that’s easy to understand and apply to your own business.

📅 Taking place 18th & 25th May (online)
💡 If you want to stay competitive and make your marketing more efficient, this is a great place to start.

👉 Book your place here:
https://www.localenterprise.ie/clare/training-events/online-bookings/ai-for-digital-marketing-bootcamp-2-part-course-may-2026.html

23/04/2026

Chat GPT has launched it's new image tool and it is pretty amazing. It's as good as, if not better than, Gemini's Nano Banana tool. A lot of testing by people online has found that it can do everything Nano Banana can do and is particularly excellent at
🚀 Accurately adding text to images
🚀 Analysing lots of information and creating infographics
🚀 Combining lots of objects and people from multiple images into one image.

Plus there isn't a watermark on the image like there is in Gemini images

In this video I give you a quick overview

I will be showing this plus lots of other AI tools that can help your marketing in upcoming AI courses from Local Enterprise Offices

Evan

15/04/2026

Last month, Instagram introduced a change, which was the ability to pause Reels. One of the impacts of this is that the number of views for some types of Reels have dropped.

Previously, some people might have re-watched a Reel in order to read or study something, whereas now they can simply pause. So it is worth checking your insights for recent Reels compared to previous months. And if you find that you have less views, the key metric to check is the number of accounts reached. It could be that you are reaching the same number of accounts, but with less repeat views.

All the best

Evan

13/04/2026

Google Gemini is brilliant for making infographics for free (an image that conveys useful information.)
This could be ideal for creating social media posts, images for your web pages, blog posts or presentations.
You can give Gemini lots of info either by pasting it into the prompt or by attaching a word doc or pdf. It will then analyse all of the info and generate an infographic. In this video I'll show you how to do it
All the best

Evan

PS - Are you following us on Instagram? If you'd like to get more tips on the best apps and tools for digital marketing click on the link below and then tap on follow https://www.instagram.com/themarketingcrowd.ie/

08/04/2026

Ai tools like Gemini Nano Banana allow you to change anything in your images but now there are AI tools that allow you to change what's in your video.
For example, you can change the weather, the scene, the colour of someone's jacket etc. In this video I show you how to use Openart.ai to do this.

All the best

Evan

23/03/2026

With new AI tools and features launching every week it can be hard to keep up.

My honest view is that you should not try to learn everything in equal depth. You need to know what matters for your business. What should you really focus on first in order to grow your sales and what can you leave for now and catch up with later.

I have written a detailed blog post which you can read on our website (see link below) but here is a summary for Facebook.


𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱

It's useful to think about AI tools in four categories:

𝗘𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 — things that will directly help you grow your sales right now. 1. You need to understand how to get the most out of LLMs like Chat GPT, Gemini and Claude. This involves getting an AI to generate a deep research report on your business and then setup a project. Attach the deep research to the project so the AI now has in depth context about your business every time you ask a question in the project. You now get expert answers highly tailored to your business. 2. It is also essential to understand how Google’s AI search engine works - called AI mode. Have you checked if you are getting recommended in the answers and do you know how AI search engines work?
𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗨𝘀𝗲𝗳𝘂𝗹 - these are AI tools and features that will support your marketing and save you time. These include Gemini's image tool called Nano Banana and Google's Notebook LM.
𝗕𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 - AI agents such as Claude CoWork will become very important within the next 3 months. There is a huge shift happening in AI. For three years we have used them to provide expert answers. The next phase is to use them to do tasks for us (AI Agents). You should start getting your head around Claude CoWork and Claude Skills because these will become very important
𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 - AI for making videos. It’s very interesting and can be used to create B Roll or to showcase your product but compared to the other points on this list it's not going to move the needle for your business.

Most people make the mistake of going straight to category four which is the flashy exciting stuff and ignoring the essentials.

If you would like to read more about this tap the link to read the Blog post.

https://themarketingcrowd.ie/ai-and-digital-marketing-the-big-picture/

All the best

Evan



Yahoo Mail: Search, organise, conquer

08/03/2026

Want to learn how to use TikTok to market your business?

There are some spaces left on a beginner level course I am delivering for LEO Wexford on Monday 9th of March. Businesses from anywhere in Ireland can attend and you can learn:-

🎯 What type of marketing tool is Tiktok and how does it compare to Instagram and Facehook

🎯 What type of videos do Irish businesses post?

🎯 How to create an account plus important settings you should know about

🎯 What are TikTok shops and how you could really benefit

🎯 How does the Algorithm work for businesses that upload videos

🎯 How to create different types of TikTok videos

🎯 Some additional equipment you should consider getting (Microphone, light, tripod)

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫?

🚀 Anyone who is new to TikTok or people who are already on TikTok but don’t know how they can use it for marketing.

🚀 Businesses anywhere in Ireland. The course is not restricted to businesses only located in Wexford

𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞:

March 9th from 1:30 PM – 4.30 PM

Cost: €25

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤

Tap on this link to visit the Local Enterprise Office website for more information and to book your place.

https://www.localenterprise.ie/wexford/training-events/online-bookings/tiktok-for-business-success-how-to-stand-out-and-sell-09-03-2026.html

Evan

01/03/2026

Some daffodils are adding a bit of colour outside our office in . Hope you have a great month of March 👍