TigerSEO Internet Marketing

Google, Yahoo! And Microsoft Are Getting Aggressive On Phishing Scams

2012-01-31T12:34:00.000-05:00

A new e-mail authentication process expected to have profound impact.

Major e-mail providers, including Google, Yahoo! And Microsoft (Bing) are poised to launch a robust initiative for improving email authentication, thereby making phishing scams more difficult to work. The major search engines have the support of other major sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook – all of whom have to deal with phishing scams around the world. Phishing scams cost consumers billions of dollars each year, and cause substantial problems for legitimate businesses operating online.

It is worth noting that these measures are being done without government direction or mandate, and without any need for suspect legislation such as SOPA.

This initiative is also supported by most of the top email service and technology providers including Fidelity Investments, Bank of America, PayPal, Ebay and more. These companies often take the heat for phishing scams, and spend millions of dollars each year to investigate and address phishing scam problems. PayPal is reported to detect and block over 1,000,000 phishing emails each week.

Google has filed a patent application for a process of using an over-layed image for authenticating sites. The search engines may take the extra measures of disabling links on suspected phishing sites. Google’s extensive wealth of information is a cornerstone in being able to identify phishing websites.

Another proposed method of fighting phishing sites si a new security initiative that would move emailers well forward of traditional SMTP processes. The new process being proposed is called DMARC , an acronym for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance.

A DMARC press release includes the following:

". . . The DMARC specification addresses concerns that have traditionally hindered widespread deployment of an authenticated, trusted email ecosystem. Today, email receivers lack a reliable way to know the extent to which an email sender uses standards like SPF and DKIM for authenticating their messages. As a result, providers must rely on complex and imperfect measurements to separate legitimate unauthenticated messages sent by the domain owner from fraudulent phishing messages sent by a scammer.

By introducing a standards-based framework, DMARC has defined a more comprehensive and integrated way for email senders to introduce email authentication technologies into their infrastructure. For example, a sender could set policies to easily request a provider to discard unauthenticated email in order to block phishing attacks. The specification also creates a mechanism for email providers to send detailed reports back to email senders to help catch any gaps in the authentication system. This feedback loop raises the trust level within the email ecosystem and makes it easier to detect and stop phishing attempts. . . "

Any of these improvements will be a huge gain for consumers and service providers. While the problem of phishing scams will not be fully stopped, it will make it much more difficult for current phishing scams to work.

Google Places Help 2012

2012-01-10T21:13:00.001-05:00

The value of local search results continues to increase, and this is especially true for Google Places pages. Because the bottom-line value of a high ranking Google Places page is so important, many business owners are actively seeking Google Places Help with online searches. This article is provided to assist people in finding legitimate providers of Google Places help.

First, let's consider what Google Places can do for your business, and what it may include. After defining these elements we will move on to selecting a Google Places Consultant.

The bottom line benefit for your business is improving the relevant rankings for your Google Places page. This greatly increases the potential for more inquiries or in-store visits from prospective customers.

Google Places services should include numerous tasks, all of which should be geared towards improving value to the user - this is what Google ultimately wants to happen. This means doing things in a proper and "white-hat" manner (many Google Places help services use black-hat practices). The first thing that should happen is that any Google Places pages should be established in a Google account which you own and control. Do not use a service that in any way limits or blocks your access to your information.

Google Places Page Information
When establishing your Google Places page you should make use of every possible manner to include true and accurate information that may be useful to a prospective customer. Always follow Google Places guidelines!

1) Your name should be your true company name and not any keyword stuffing.
2) Your address must be a legitimate business street address, and not a mailbox location, or non-public area like a warehouse or equipment storage facility.
3) Your description is limited to characters, and should be void of "sales hype". You shhould include a good key phrase or two in your description.
4) Details such as business hours, payment options, etc. are important to consumers. Always keep these updated!
5) Your category selections must include at least one category suggested by Google. You can create others using key phrases but do not use city or area names.
6) Photos are limited to eight images. We suggest working your images to display as a true square shape to prevent distortion. The images are displayed in the order uploaded, so upload your logo first. Other image considerations are product images, accreditations such as BBB logo, and credit card logos. You may want to have a short text message on your images.
7) Videos have tremendous value. A video adds a personal touch and is a great way to deliver your "elevator pitch", show off your business location, and have greater influence on prospective customers. Furthermore, a Places page with video is usually ranked higher that a Places page without video content.
8) Additional details is an area where you have a lot of latitude to include facts that can help a customer choose your business. Information on parking options, brands carried, delivery options, etc. are good to mention.

Google Places Help Companies
A legitimate Google Places help company can make a profound impact on your bottom line. Finding the best Google Places help company for your business is worth taking adequate time to investigate and compare companies. Here are some key points to consider:

1) Business Structure, which is your assurance of stability, reliability and capabilities. You need a company that has a true business office, a staff, and a solid customr base. Entrusting your business to a lone person working from home is a major mistake, and chances are very good that they will not provide truly professional work.
2) Qualifications, let's you know that the company has been around awhile, established a good reputation and earned your trust. Having BBB accreditation, being a member of Google Engage, Adwords Professional, Analytics Professional or similar achievements identifies a good company.
3) Work Process, is a critical area to evaluate. Is there a formal process? Is it completed by in-house staff or outsourced overseas? Do you get any type of reporting? How is your information gathered and developed?
4) Ongoing Support, is a serious consideration for any company that relies on an internet presence to impact sales. working with a "one-trick pony" will cause you problems when you need SEO work, Yahoo Local or Bing Business Portal help, website support or related services. If you're going to hire a company, make certain that they can do more for your business.

Google Places Help Costs will vary, however it is important to know that you should NOT be pressured into ongoing monthly fees to manage or promote your Google Places page! Unless your business facts change, or you have new content such as photos or videos, there is no work to do on your actual Places page. Beware of hustlers who push for monthly fees!

Google Places Help Recommendations
TigerSEO Internet Marketing
E-Gumball
Optilocal

If you have any specific questions or needs, feel free to contact us. We will be glad to contact you directly, or answer you question in a new post.

Google Changes Mean SEO Adjustments - Megasitelinks and more

2012-01-07T08:17:00.000-05:00

In December, Google rolled out 30 new search quality highlights that will (or already have) affect SEO work. As usual, all of these have their own Google code names such as DAFFIE and Porky Pig. Here is a list of the changes, as shown on the Google Search blog on 1/05/12. >>

•Image Search landing page quality signals. [launch codename “simple”] This is an improvement that analyzes various landing page signals for Image Search. We want to make sure that not only are we showing you the most relevant images, but we are also linking to the highest quality source pages.

•More relevant sitelinks. [launch codename “concepts”, project codename “Megasitelinks”] We improved our algorithm for picking sitelinks. The result is more relevant sitelinks; for example, we may show sitelinks specific to your metropolitan region, which you can control with your location setting.

•Soft 404 Detection. Web servers generally return the 404 status code when someone requests a page that doesn’t exist. However, some sites are configured to return other status codes, even though the page content might explain that the page was not found. We call these soft 404s (or “crypto” 404s) and they can be problematic for search engines because we aren’t sure if we should ignore the pages. This change is an improvement to how we detect soft 404s, especially in Russian, German and Spanish. For all you webmasters out there, the best practice is still to always use the correct response code.

•More accurate country-restricted searches. [launch codename “greencr”] On domains other than .com, users have the option to see only results from their particular country. This is a new algorithm that uses several signals to better determine where web documents are from, improving the accuracy of this feature.

•More rich snippets. We improved our process for detecting sites that qualify for shopping, recipe and review rich snippets. As a result, you should start seeing more sites with rich snippets in search results.

•Better infrastructure for autocomplete. This is an infrastructure change to improve how our autocomplete algorithm handles spelling corrections for query prefixes (the beginning part of a search).

•Better spam detection in Image Search. [launch codename “leaf”] This change improves our spam detection in Image Search by extending algorithms we already use for our main search results.

•Google Instant enhancements for Japanese. For languages that use non-Latin characters, many users use a special IME (Input Method Editor) to enter queries. This change works with browsers that are IME-aware to better handle Japanese queries in Google Instant.

•More accurate byline dates. [launch codename “foby”] We made a few improvements to how we determine what date to associate with a document. As a result, you’ll see more accurate dates annotating search results.

•Live results for NFL and college football. [project codename “Live Results”] We’ve added new live results for NFL.com and ESPN’s NCAA Football results. These results now provide the latest scores, schedules and standings for your favorite football teams.

•Improved dataset for related queries. We are now using an improved dataset on term relationships to find related queries. We sometimes include results for queries that are related to your original search, and this improvement leads to results from more relevant related queries.

•Related query improvements. [launch codename “lyndsy”] Sometimes we fetch results for queries that are related to the original query but have fewer words. We made several changes to our algorithms to make them more conservative and less likely to introduce results without query words.

•Better lyrics results. [launch codename “baschi”, project codename “Contra”] This change improves our result quality for lyrics searches.

•Tweak to +1 button on results page. As part of our continued effort to deliver a beautifully simple user experience across Google products, we’ve made a subtle tweak to how the +1 button appears on the results page. Now the +1 button will only appear when you hover over a result or when the result has already been +1’d.

•Better spell correction in Vietnamese. [project codename “Pho Viet”] We launched a new Vietnamese spelling model. This will help give more accurate spelling predictions for Vietnamese queries.

•Upcoming events at venues. We've improved the recently released places panel for event venues. For major venues, we now show up to three upcoming events on the right of the page. Try it for [staples center los angeles] or [paradise rock club boston].
•Improvements to image size signal. [launch codename “matter”] This is an improvement to how we use the size of images as a ranking signal in Image Search. With this change, you’ll tend to see images with larger full-size versions.

•Improved Hebrew synonyms. [launch codename “SweatNovember”, project codename “Synonyms”] This update refines how we handle Hebrew synonyms across multiple languages. Context matters a lot for translation, so this change prevents us from using translated synonyms that are not actually relevant to the query context.

•Safer searching. [launch codename “Hoengg”, project codename "SafeSearch"] We updated our SafeSearch tool to provide better filtering for certain queries when strict SafeSearch is enabled.

•Encrypted search available on new regional domains. Google now offers encrypted search by default on google.com for signed-in users, but it’s not the default on our other regional domains (eg: google.fr for France). Now users in the UK, Germany and France can opt in to encrypted search by navigating directly to an SSL version of Google Search on their respective regional domains: https://www.google.co.uk, https://www.google.de and https://www.google.fr.

•Faster mobile browsing. [launch codename “old possum”, project codename “Skip Redirect”] Many websites redirect smartphone users to another page that is optimized for smartphone browsers. This change uses the final smartphone destination url in our mobile search results, so you can bypass all the redirects and load the target page faster.

Google's Website Trust Factor

2011-12-31T15:28:00.000-05:00

Matt Cutts does a great job of producing videos that explain in easy to understand terms, many of the mysteries of how Google views and manages online content. A topic of ongoing discussion concers the "trust factor" and what determines the "authority factor" of a website. The following Matt Cutts video addresses this topic. Enjoy!

Google Places Help & Google Places Optimization

2011-12-11T17:42:00.000-05:00

When we first meet with our clients the subject of local search listings is always a lively topic. We are constantly amazed at the number of business owners who either are unaware of local search pages, have no idea that these pages can be claimed, or disregard their importance. Based on our ongoing experiences we're taking some time to write a piece on local search pages, and Google Places in particular. Making a minor investment to get Google Places help for Google Places optimization is money well spent.

What are local search pages?

When you do a search for a product, service or type of business that includes a geographical qualifier (i.e, any service in dallas tx), the search engines immediately recognize that where the business is located is important to you. This is when the search engine results show business listings that include address and phone information. These local search results are formatted differently among search engines but the purpose is the same - identify local businesses that match the need of the user.

Where are local search listings?
Local Search is a generic term, and search engines or other web properties each have their own name for their local search listings. Google has Google Places, Yahoo has Yahoo Local, and Bing has the Bing Business Portal. There are at least 200 other websites with directory style listings where your company should be included. While having just a Google Places listing is quite valuable, having a well developed collection of these local search sites strengthens your total online visibility.

What Should You Do?
You have two primary options. One is to take a LOT of time to research the numerous sites where you should get a local search presence. Learn and organize all of the types of information that is required for these listings, and then embark upon a time consuming venture to complete the task. Bear in mind that just doing this is a good thing however, unless you know how to optimize local search listings they may not achieve high enough placement to do much good for your business. Your best option is to hire an Atlanta internet marketing company to set-up and manage your local search project. If the company specifically states that they offer local search marketing, and in particular offer Google Places Help, they are probably worth a quick phone call.

If you are a do it yourself person, before you start working on your listings, be sure to develop a list of all pertinent business information such as business name, address(es), phone and fax numbers, logo and photos, business description (200 characters), define your service area, list any specials or coupons, and make note of any links you have to videos on YouTube. Google Places page optimization, or optimizing other listings involves far more than we can explain here.

Hiring A Good Local Search Company
Hiring a good local search marketing company means taking a little time to check out their credentials such as a BBB rating, length of time in business, how many employees, do they have a real business office, do they have a business license.

If you have not yet taken the time to create or claim, and optimize you local search listings you need to make it a top priority. Be sure to keep a list of sites where you are registerd, along with your login information. The year 2012 is almost here and local search pages can improve your sales in 2012!

Blog AdWords Ad Extensions Guide: Article Worth Viewing

2011-10-27T10:15:00.000-04:00

For most people, there's always a little more to learn about how to get the most from a Google Adwords program. This entry addresses Ad Extension features for Google Adwords. Specifically, we're going to introduce you to a great article on the Wordstream website. Now about those ad extensions . . .

Google Adwords Ad Extensions enhance the typical text ad with one or more lines that provide additional information such as an address and phone provide users with a faster way to reach relevant information about a business and its offerings. It is very easy to utilize Google Adwords Ad Extensions, and learning how is almost as easy.

While Google provides very good information on how to use, and why to use, Adwords ad extensions, there is a lot to be learned by reading the article we referenced above. Below is an excerpt from the article written by Tom Demers for the Wordstream site. (The title is a link to the complete article.)

AdWords Ad Extensions Guide Bonus: Google AdWords Communication Extensions

Recently we did a series of posts on AdWords Ad Extensions, complete with a quick follow-up on how Google decides to display ad extensions and a closer look at the following extensions:

Google AdWords Location ExtensionsGoogle AdWords Product ExtensionsGoogle AdWords Sitelink ExtensionsGoogle AdWords Call ExtensionsBut after concluding the series we quickly realized that we left an ad extension off the list (the downside to pompously titling something “The Ultimate Guide to X” is that you can easily be guilted into pretty much never-ending updates, so be careful with your hyperbolic in-title-adjectives).

One ad extension we missed was Google AdWords communication extensions. This isn’t available for everyone, but it’s a very interesting extension that could have some serious implications for some advertisers, and could become a more important tool in pay-per-click advertising as time goes on

If you need assistance with any part of your Google Adwords program,from setup to any part of PPC Management, please get in touch with us.

Submit Website to Google With Fetch

2011-08-30T14:12:00.000-04:00

Google has posted information on their Webmaster Central Blog with great news for expediting the indexing of a new website! The following is a repost of the article written by Jonathon Simon and Susan Moskwa:

The Fetch as Googlebot feature in Webmaster Tools now provides a way to submit new and updated URLs to Google for indexing. After you fetch a URL as Googlebot, if the fetch is successful, you’ll now see the option to submit that URL to our index. When you submit a URL in this way Googlebot will crawl the URL, usually within a day. We’ll then consider it for inclusion in our index. Note that we don’t guarantee that every URL submitted in this way will be indexed; we’ll still use our regular processes—the same ones we use on URLs discovered in any other way—to evaluate whether a URL belongs in our index.

This new functionality may help you in several situations: if you’ve just launched a new site, or added some key new pages, you can ask Googlebot to find and crawl them immediately rather than waiting for us to discover them naturally. You can also submit URLs that are already indexed in order to refresh them, say if you’ve updated some key content for the event you’re hosting this weekend and want to make sure we see it in time. It could also help if you’ve accidentally published information that you didn’t mean to, and want to update our cached version after you’ve removed the information from your site.

How to submit a URL
First, use Diagnostics > Fetch As Googlebot to fetch the URL you want to submit to Google. If the URL is successfully fetched you’ll see a new “Submit to index” link appear next to the fetched URL.
Once you click “Submit to index” you’ll see a dialog box that allows you to choose whether you want to submit only the one URL, or that URL and all its linked pages.
When submitting individual URLs, we have a maximum limit of 50 submissions per week; when submitting URLs with all linked pages, the limit is 10 submissions per month. You can see how many submissions you have left on the Fetch as Googlebot page. Any URL submitted should point to content that would be suitable for Google Web Search, so if you're trying to submit images or videos you should use Sitemaps instead.

Submit URLs to Google without verifying
In conjunction with this update to Fetch as Googlebot, we've also updated the public "Add your URL to Google" form. It's now the Crawl URL form. It has the same quota limits for submitting pages to the index as the Fetch as Googlebot feature but doesn't require verifying ownership of the site in question, so you can submit any URLs that you want crawled and indexed.

Note that Googlebot is already pretty good about finding and crawling new content in a timely fashion, so don’t feel obligated to use this tool for every change or update on your site. But if you’ve got a URL whose crawling or indexing you want to speed up, consider submitting it using the Crawl URL form or the updated Fetch as Googlebot feature in Webmaster Tools. Feel free to visit our Webmaster Help Forum if you have more detailed questions.

As an Atlanta internet marketing company we're excited about this new capability to better serve our clients.

Learning From Your Online Competition

2011-08-30T00:03:00.000-04:00

Any business that has made, or is making, an earnest effort to achieve high organic rankings has undoubtedly encountered some online competitors that seem equally determined to have those same high organic placements. Rather than look away in disgust, maybe you should consider taking an in depth look at your online competitors to see what can be learned from their efforts. After all, they must be doing something right.

Ther are many things to examine when researching an online competitor. Many of these things are spelled out in an SEO strategies article that was posted online. You can learn about the page count of their site, amount of content on each page, keyword density, and obviously look at the source code for insights to their SEO strategy. A backlink check is another good way to find valuable off-page SEO opportunities.

Since your competitors have or are going through the same exercises as you, there is a golden opportunity to save yourseld considerable time, effort and money by learning from an online competitor, and adding your own special touches to improve your SEO results. This is a common practice when doing Atlanta internet marketing or internet marketing in any major market.

Bing Webmaster Tools Reports Now Include Yahoo Traffic Data

2011-08-24T14:03:00.000-04:00

Today we received this email concerning the integration of Yahoo traffic data into Bing's Webmaster Tool reports. It's probably a good idea to let your clients know that their numbers may look a little beefier than normal.

Dear Bing Webmaster User,

Your Bing Webmaster Tools data just got more powerful!

Yahoo! Data now included in your account!

The Bing Webmaster team is pleased to announce the integration of Yahoo traffic data into Bing Webmaster Tools reports. Bing Webmaster Tools will now be showing integrated data from Yahoo within certain areas and reports.

The short list of areas you will notice changes in are as follows:

On the Traffic Tab: Traffic summary report and Page Traffic reports will be impacted as follows:

Impressions – will go up based on combined data numbers across both search engines
Clicks – will go up based on combined data numbers
Click Through Rates (CTR) as appropriate for above (change only due to the mathematics involved in the first two items)

No actual rankings will be affected by the combining of data within Bing Webmaster Tools.

As a visual reminder that data is now combined, you will see both the Bing and Yahoo logos directly above the graphs shown on these pages. At this time the data will be combined, not selectable. The data will also update in any market where Bing is powering Yahoo search.

For the month of August, accounts will note the changes in data numbers between the 12th and the 16th. September will be the first full month of combined data.

Hola, Ciao, Привет, Γεια σου, Salut!
Now serving Webmaster Tools data in 40+ languages

For our international users hoping to see data in more languages than English, all features in Bing Webmaster Tools are now available in the following 42 languages:

Arabic Basque Bulgarian Catalan Chinese - Simplified Chinese - Traditional
Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French Galician
German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Italian Japanese Korean
Latvian Lithuanian Malay Norwegian Polish Portuguese – Brazil
Portuguese – Portugal Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish
Swedish Thai Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese

Essentially this means that all of the features current as of this blog post are now available in the languages above.

Opt-in to Bing Webmaster Tools for instant notification of your site issues, free advertising credit and other offers!

Want Bing Webmaster Tools to notify you when specific issues are found with your site or to send you free offers? Simply opt-in* to receive our Bing Webmaster Communications.

*To Opt-in: Sign in to your Webmaster account → Click on ‘Preferences’ on the top left hand side on your browser → Check the box in the pop-up window and click Save.

Watch for new content to appear monthly as we invest further in explaining features and highlight areas of work webmasters are focused on.

Visit Bing Webmaster Tools to see the new features in your account, and to access the new content.

Sincerely,

The Bing Webmaster Team

Video Site Map

2011-08-19T16:17:00.000-04:00

To increase the probability of Google finding and indexing your videos you should create and maintain a video site map. Video sitemaps provide search engines like Google with important information to classify your videos for specific search queries. There are many pieces of information that can be included in a video sitemap including the URL's for pages where videos can be found, titles of videos, SEO keywords, thumbnail images, and more. The amount of information that you provide on your video sitemap will make a difference in how well a search engine can understand and place your video content.

Creating a video site map is relatively easy, and submitting a video sitemap to a search engine is a simple process. A video sitemap can be submitted to Google through Webmaster Tools, and there are other ways for other search engines. If you are reluctant to take on this task you can find affordable services from a video marketing company.

Google search results have a Video Onebox where indexed videos may appear. The Video Onebox is a group of videos that are presented based on a specific search query. Indexed videos by Google may also appear on YouTube.

Yahoo Site Explorer Service Set To End

2011-08-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

Yahoo has announced that their Yahoo Site Explorer service will soon end. Yahoo Site Explorer is a tool that is similar to Google's Webmaster Tools, which provides a user dashboard fro confirmed website owners to view performance metrics of their website. This shut down is due to a perceived duplication of services related to their arrangement with Bing. We are unaware of an exact date for the end of Yahoo Site Explorer, however it will probably be this year.

We recommend that anyone using Yahoo Site Explorer should make certain that they have added their website to Bing's Business Portal for a smooth transition, and as a safety measure in case there is a problem with data migration. And YES, you should already be using Google Webmaster Tools!

For any special functionalities such as backlink checks there are numerous free services which can easily be found online. Most internet marketing companies won't see any problems from this change. In fact, it will probbaly make life a bit easier because there is one less place to monitor.

Google Plus - Unraveling The Thoughts Behind Google's Social Media Quest

2011-07-13T17:19:00.000-04:00

Google Plus remains somewhat of a mystery. Presently not allowing anyone to join this new endeavor. The one thing that seems to be clearly evident is that this project has in its roots, a desire to learn deep, intimate details about a user's habits and personal preferences. At face value, yes, this could be viewed as being for strictly business purposes, meaning that ads delivered would be highly relevant and useful for the seller and the user (buyer). A wise person has to also contemplate the darker side of allowing any information aggregator to amass data that could be compromised or used for unintended purposes. Is Google's knowledge of your circle of friends really important for you?

With who else might persoanl data be shared? This could be the "permanaent record" we were all warned about in grade school, lol. Sharing "innocently acquired" data would be a breach of trust that would be a huge slap on the face of personal freedom. For Google, sharing this treasure trove of date would generate a LOT of cash, and/or garner a LOT of favor with the federal government (i.e., Federal Regulators, Dept of Justice, etc.)

I really admire Google for so many things, but the desire to "keep a folder on what I do" is one adventure I'll have to skip. Personally, I see this as being a LOT about Google, and only a LITTLE about the avaerage person. From the perspective of the avaerage internet user, "they're fixin' what ain't broke".

For another perspective you can view a fresh article by Barbara Ortutay at this link >> Google social net is about preserving leadership

How To Create XML Sitemap - XML Sitemap Doctype

2011-07-12T21:06:00.000-04:00

Many people ask about the differences in an HTML and an XML sitemap. A simple explanation is that an HTML sitemap (or PHP, etc.) lists links to pages for site visitors to use much like a book's table of contents. A XML sitemap helps search engines to locate and better index pages on a website. Below is a generic example of how to create an XML sitemap.

The lastmod refers to the last date that the particular page was modified/updated. The priority tells search engines the relative importance of the content on the specified page relative to other pages. An About Us page typically would have a lower priority than a page concerning more specific information on products or services. You should not list on your site map any utility pages such as Site Map, Contact, Privacy Policy, etc. The XML sitemap should be placed on the same directory level as your site's pages. Do not link to the XML sitemap from your website pages. Ideally you should submit your XML sitemap to Google and other search engines, although search engines will find it when crawling your website's hosting service.

The use of a well constructed XML sitemap is a highly recommended, and takes only minutes to create. If you remain uncertain how to do this, contact us and we can create a XML sitemap for your business website.

2011-07-05T23:30:00.000-04:00

A hot new post in Mashable reports that Google is set to retire the Blogger and Picasa brand names. The products will survive under new names.

A snippet from the Mashable article >>
Say goodbye to the Picasa and Blogger names: Google intends to retire several non-Google name brands and rename them as Google products, Mashable has learned.

The move is part of a larger effort to unify its brand for the public launch of Google+, the search giant’s social initiative.

Blogger and Picasa aren’t going away, of course — they’re two of Google’s most popular products. Instead, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Google intends to rename Picasa “Google Photos” and Blogger will become “Google Blogs.” Several other Google brands are likely to be affected, though our sources made it clear that YouTube would not be rebranded. The technology giant shut down Google Video, its failed web video service, in May.

Click one of the links to view the entire story.

Periodic Table for SEO Elements

2011-07-02T12:20:00.000-04:00

For those who may not have heard about the nifty new SEO Periodic Table graphic available at Search Engine Land we recommend taking a peak at it.

Here is a snippet of their introduction:

Search engine optimization — SEO — may seem like alchemy to the uninitiated. But there is a science to it. Search engines reward pages with the right combination of ranking factors, or “signals.” SEO is about ensuring your content generates the right type of signals. Our chart below summarizes the major factors to focus on for search engine ranking success. The Search Engine Land Guide To SEO explains factors in more depth, with tips and a tutorial on implementing them.

This cool illustration was created by Column Five, and is under copyright protection for Third Door Media.

Why Is Facebook Shutting Down Apps?

2011-06-26T15:29:00.001-04:00

Facebook, the social media juggernaut, has abruptly began shutting down apps, leaving tens of thousnads of people wondering why. There was no asvisement of the action prior to execution, just BAM,and it's done.

Supposedly, Facebook has launced an algorithm that automatically shuts down apps which are deemed to be posting "too often" to a users wall. No one seems to know what constitutes "too often", much less why it matters.

At this time we do not have a list of any particular apps affected by the algorithm induced app death, or any information on further implications. We'll post more info as it becomes available from our sources.

Google Under Federal Scrutiny - It's Feds vs Microsoft Revisited

2011-06-24T14:24:00.000-04:00

The federal government is preparing to go after Google on the grounds that Google has "abused its dominance in Web-search advertising". I don't know what that means other than they have very popular products, they promote them very well, and they are wildly successful. Only through a socialist or communist view could being successful in business be viewed as criminal.

A person could easily argue that this pending action is an adaptation of the assault on Capitalism similar to when the Clinton Administration sued Microsoft. Oddly enough, despite a seemingly cozy relationship with the current Administration, the Obama Administration seems to have no reservations in harrassing Google. When nothing else makes sense, follow the money trail.

Because I don't hear a clamor among consumers, or advertisers such as our company, it's easy to assume that this is all about a shakedown to confiscate money from Google for Federal coffers . . . . or "encourage" donations to a political party that desperately needs money to polish their image for a 2012 presidential election campaign.

For information from professional journalists we have provide below, a snippet from a Wall Street Journal article by THOMAS CATAN and AMIR EFRATI
You can also read the full article here

Federal regulators are poised to hit Google Inc. with subpoenas, launching a broad, formal investigation into whether the Internet giant has abused its dominance in Web-search advertising, people familiar with the matter said.

On today's digits: the FTC is poised to serve Google with subpoenas as the Commission looks to explore the company's dominance on the Web; Walt Mossberg gives us his review of the Google entirely cloud-based laptop, the Chromebook; and, tips for creating protective passwords (first step: stop using "QWERTY", maybe?)

The civil probe, which has the potential to reshape how companies compete on the Internet, is the most serious legal threat yet to the 12-year-old company, though it wouldn't necessarily lead to any federal allegations of wrongdoing against Google. read more

Bing Webmaster Tools Are New

2011-06-23T13:51:00.001-04:00

This is a reprint of an anouncement about changes to Bing Webmaster Tools

As of June 7th, the Bing Webmaster Tools site that you know has changed.

Bing has been investing in building its Webmaster Tools for a while now and we have recently launched a revised webmaster experience that offers expansion in tools, data coverage and content. The site redesign makes it easier for you to find content, tools and data to help meet your needs. Our new features include expanded functionality, and the data that coincides with these new features. With over 40 new self-help documents on hand, publishers now have access to a wide range of help and guidance content across various topics such as how to use our tools and search engine optimization.

Dear Bing Webmaster User,

As of June 7th, the Bing Webmaster Tools site that you know has changed.

Bing has been investing in building its Webmaster Tools for a while now and we have recently launched a revised webmaster experience that offers expansion in tools, data coverage and content. The site redesign makes it easier for you to find content, tools and data to help meet your needs. Our new features include expanded functionality, and the data that coincides with these new features. With over 40 new self-help documents on hand, publishers now have access to a wide range of help and guidance content across various topics such as how to use our tools and search engine optimization.

As part of our investment, we’ve built new functionality to help publishers find relevant data and control their accounts. Here are some of the major features and improvements Bing Webmaster account users will see:

– Crawl delay configurable by the hour
ο Control when and at what pace Bing crawls your website
– User and role management
ο Control who can access your Bing Webmaster account and what functions they can use
– Index Explorer
ο Improvements to reliability and how fast data appears in your reports
– URL Normalization
ο Manage which URLs from your site Bing holds in its index
– Deep Links Management
ο Manage which deep links are shown for your website, when your domain is selected

Beyond the updated and enhanced features, Bing Webmaster Tools has also launched detailed self-help guides and how-to documents. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, from how to accomplish tasks within Bing Webmaster tools, to what you should be focused on when performing search engine optimization. Here’s a quick peek at some of the new content topics in the 40+ new guides and how to documents launched:

• Using Bing Webmaster Tools
• Webmaster Tools Data explained
• How to perform Link Building
• Removing or blocking pages from our index
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) guidance
• Managing URL parameters
• Implementing Rich Snippets (www.schema.org)
• Managing Canonicalization (duplicate content)
• Managing redirects
• 404 page management
• Rich Media and Search

Watch for new content to appear monthly as we invest further in explaining features and highlight areas of work webmasters are focused on.

Visit Bing Webmaster Tools to see the new features in your account, and to access the new content.

SEO For Wordpress Templates

2011-06-04T19:29:00.000-04:00

There is a widespread use of templates in general, and for Wordpress in particular. Due to the unique functionality of the Wordpress platform, it can be challenging to get proper SEO work done on a Wordpress template. We will offer some suggestions here.

To properly SEO any website it is important to first understand the principles of on-page SEO. From there you can develop a specific strategy for the overall site, and each page in particular. You should certainly avoid all forms of black-hat SEO and use only proven white-hat SEO methods.

When you are confident that you understand SEO basics, and have your plan ready to implement, you should add to you Wordpress account the plugin named All In One SEO Pack . This is an extremely good SEO tool for managing basic SEO elements on your site.

In addition to utilizing the All In One SEO Pack, it is important to develop optimized content (text), use strategic intrasite linking, and take steps to meet Google's webmaster guidelines. We personally recommend making certain that your website meets W3C validation standards, and is fully cross browser compliant.

For more information on effective SEO strategies you can explore Google or Youtube.

Internet Yellow Pages - Our Thoughts On IYP

2011-05-25T11:12:00.000-04:00

The yellow pages print directories are all but dead. In order to protect the massive revenue at stake the phone companies were dragged kicking and screaming into “this internet stuff”. Now, with carefully crafted scripts in hand, the yellow pages reps have switched their stories and talk about how great the internet is, and tell tales of how much better their internet products are this year. Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), templated websites, “click programs”, and other gimmicky products often deliver lackluster results and don’t deliver a good ROI.

Do the Visibility Test! Use a search term that your customer may use and see if the internet yellow page website is on page one. If not, it’s a good indicator that your results will be very bad for that search term if you advertise on their site. When people use Google, they rely on the first page results to find a business! Forget the sales material and let your eyes guide you to the truth about value and potential.

If you take notice, every year your yellow page rep brings in a “great new product” which replaces last year’s “great new product”. Some takeaways from this annual event are: 1) they are essentially admitting that last year’s product was not so good, 2) they need to show something “new and exciting” to restore your sense of hope to renew your advertising, and 3) your sales rep still cannot fully explain internet marketing – they just stick to their sales pitch.

Here is an insider’s view of the yellow page business – Yellow Pages advertising was once a necessary evil for business owners. The phone companies exploited this and squeezed as much revenue as possible from their advertisers. Marketing programs almost force advertisers to spend more every year, and usually penalized advertisers for downsizing their advertising programs. Reps are trained in how to “pitch” products to make the biggest possible sale. Sales reps rarely understand the costs or effectiveness of other advertising options, and they almost never encourage advertisers to spend money elsewhere. Phone companies sell online advertising. They are not a true internet marketing company.

IYP Website Contracts are problematic becaue you are locked into a long term contract with limited design and development options.

1)Yellow Pages websites are “sold” to customers requiring monthly payments for as long as you want the website. The truth is that you do not own the website and it will never be paid off! Over a 10 year period you may pay well over $30,000 for a templated website, when you could own a custom website design for $4,000 or less by using a true website design company. Plus, you can easily reach a live person at a web design firm.
2)Yellow Pages websites are typically bland templates built out in a production environment that stresses quick completion to start your billing. Aesthetics are sacrificed for speed. Content is created without any real research on the client’s industry, competition or local market situations.
3)Yellow Pages websites do not include true search engine optimization techniques which means that theses sites will hardly ever rank well in competitive headings. Interestingly enough, this ranking problem “can be solved by buying internet yellow pages advertising”!
4)Yellow Pages websites do not offer many high value options like RSS feeds, W3C validation, searchable catalogs, e-commerce, website analytics, and sleek custom design features.

Search Marketing products are problematic because you are locked into a contract regardless of your satisfaction. You have little control over your program, and don't have a full range of internet marketing services.

1)“Click Packages” hype the number of clicks to your website which does not mean sales. In many cases you may not have control over the keywords selected to generate clicks.
2)No creation or implementation of critical search engine support elements.
3)No critical support services for link building, internet press releases, blog development, etc.
4)Limited to no support for submissions to vertical directories, social media and bookmarking sites, blog management, and other online listing opportunities.
5)Performance reports have no backup data and typically conflict with third party analytics data. Try Google Analytics and compare the results to what your IYP rep shows you . . . and ask them to explain the differences.

If you’re tired of yellow pages books and want to leverage the power of the Internet you should employ the services of a true internet marketing company that can provide you with objective advice on search engine marketing and local search marketing, as well as provide cost effective solutions without expensive, long term contracts.

Top Search Position Gains 37-percent of Clicks - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

2011-05-06T23:53:00.000-04:00

If you've wondered about the importance of SEO, and the potnetial value of a well managed PPC program, then you should read this article. I think that most anyone will be surprised to see the huge difference it makes to be at the top of page 1.

Top Search Position Gains 37-percent of Clicks - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

Google Cracks Down on Rogue Advertisers - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

2011-05-06T23:41:00.001-04:00

Here is a link to an article that discusses a proactive step taken by Google to reign in some of the crazies that use Adwords. We give Google a thumbs-up for this move.

Google Cracks Down on Rogue Advertisers - Website Magazine - Website Magazine

Google's Panda Update, aka the Farmer Update

2011-03-20T22:01:00.000-04:00

We are coming up on a month since Google's Panda update hit the internet. This update has also been called "The Farmer Update". It is estimated that this affected about 12% of all websites. Honestly, we have seen very little changes, and most changes did not last over two weeks.

One site that did take some hits is Merchant Circle. Merchant Circle's comments wer recently posted on the SearchEngineLand.com website and included the following:

Beyond the changes we’ve already made, here are the near-term actions we’re making in response to the “farmer” update:

•Re-doubling or efforts to fight spam and other low-quality content across our network (which is always a challenge in local
•Evaluating our site to determine where we can make improvements to site layout and topology with a goal of improving search experience
And here are the activities on which we will continue to focus to help local businesses:

•Educating our members about the importance of creating valuable local content about their businesses and their communities (see examples here of our merchant education webinar series here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MerchantCircle#p/c/16A06082C6D6A04A
•Serving as an objective voice for local business owners who are often under represented in local discussions (see: http://blog.merchantcircle.com/2011/02/q1-2011-merchant-circle-mci-survey.html)
•Building valuable new products to enable quality conversations between consumers and merchants (where else can merchants book online appointments, create online deals, send newsletters, meet other business owners all for free?)

If you have commenst on the recent Google updates, please post it here.

Xemion Interviews E-Platform Marketing

2011-03-12T19:05:00.001-05:00

Xemion, one of the best online directories for the internet marketing industry, recently interviewed Jim Hobson of E-Platform Marketing. The purpose of the interview is to provide prospective client's with valuable answers to common questions. Click the link to view the entire Xemion interview with Jim Hobson.

The interview addresses points ranging from how to select an internet marketing or web design company to thoughts on the future of internet marketing. I think that it is worth taking several minutes to read and consider. Feel free to leave comments on your thoughts!

What Did You Expect For $1.99 ???

2011-03-07T21:19:00.000-05:00

We get quite a few calls from people who say how much they like our portfolio and the results that we deliver for our clients . . . and then they steer the conversation into how "their last guy" only charged (pick a low price here). They then say how much they liked the prices of "their last guy" but the work was not good, and he never did what he said he would do. So, what did you expect for $1.99?

Would you go to Ruth's Chris and tell them how you like the prices at Western Sizzlin' and they should match the price for their food? Of course not! So why do people do this when searching for a qualified internet marketing company?

When you contact a legitimate, licensed internet marketing company - with an office, a staff, insurance, advertising expenses, lots of equipment, licensed software and a desire to remain in business - you need to keep in mind that they are not the cheap guy on Craigslist. They have built their business on a certain level of quality and professionalism. They have overhead and do things properly. They are going to charge a fair rate for professional services.

If you choose the "Craigslister" or freelancer, bear in mind that they are probably a part-timer doing your work "when they feel like it" and just enough to ask you for money, and/or they are anti-social oddballs that can't hold a regular job and they WILL eventually crack up on you. They are probably working off of bootleg software, and violating every copyright law as they steal images and copy text from other websites for your website. Being cheap is always expensive in the long run.

Nobody likes to pay too much. This is why Walmart is successful. But "your last guy" is like the cheap Chinese goods sold by Walmart. Won't last, will disappoint you, and you'll need to replace it sooner than you think. After all, what did you expect for $1.99?

Video Marketing and Website Video Content

2011-03-03T18:24:00.001-05:00

Video content has become extremely popular for internet marketing and for website content. Unfortunately any fool with a camera can make and post a video, often cluttering sites like Youtube with blithering nonsense. If people will take the time to understand some basics on how and WHY to create a video for online promotion they will d everyone a favor - especially themselves.

First and foremost, your video should not be a lengthy documentary unless you are a very well established authority such as Matt Cutts of Google. Cutts knows his facts versus some guy with a quest for fame espousing his hunches and perceptions. Generally speaking your video is better received if you focus on a single point and the content is concise and structured.

Second, don't try to be a creative director and add all sorts of flashy graphics and techno music. These things are distracting and usually make your video appear as very amateurish. Again, clean and simple makes for better communications.

Use decent equipment and a good setting for filming. You must have good equipment (not necessarily expensive), good lighting and an ability to manage good sound quality. We once had a client whose wife fancied herself as a video producer (among other fantasy creative skills). The videos produced had horrible sound quality which included overwhelming background noises from air conditioning units, vehicular traffic and more. A good video shoot needs to be planned and executed with a commitment to creating a high quality result - een if it means repetitive efforts to get it right.

Lastly, think about your subject and speak from the heart. Most people cannot read a script (or teleprompter, lol) and appear genuine. Study how to give a short, impromptu speech and you'll command a better appearance which means you'll make a better impression on your viewers.

If all else fails, hire a professional company like Fat Chimp Sudios in St. Louis to do your videos. The ultimate goal is to create a video that makes you appear confident, pleasant while you provide information of value for the viewer.

Choosing A Service Provider (part 3)

2011-03-01T20:38:00.000-05:00

After you have completed your due diligence on the basic facts about a propspective provider of internet marketing services or website design (see part 2 of this series) it is time to move on to the subjective qualifiers.

You need to take a close look at what the vendor has done for their own business. If they have a ratty looking site then you should not expect much more than what you see. If their site has marginal organic rankings and poor local search rankings then you should expect that or less. The bottom line is that if they can't do it for themselves you can't expect them to do good things for you.

Look over the vendors portfolio to assess the range of their experience and see their work. Visit sites shown on their portfolio, go to the bottom of the referenced site and see if their name is showing in the credit line. Many subpar outfits claim work that is not theirs.

A good website company will have at least 20 example sites in their portfolio. Their portfolio should have represent a diverse client base and have sites that range from a simple brochure site to a complex e-commerce site. Remember that your internet needs will grow and that you want to partner with a company that can help you for years down the road.

Ask about the company's fulfillment process. Many companies outsource web design to India or piecemeal work out to a plethora of freelancers. We have personally caught web design firms in India and Canada having stolen website files and reproduced the sites after changing only the logo and contact information. Know who is doing your work and how it will be completed. If someone works alone and claims to be doing several sites a month you should be suspicious.

Ask about the company's full range of capabilities. Again, a one or two person outfit cannot possibly handle a book of business in a proper manner. If they cannot provide a full suite of services you will quickly outgrow them or suffer through being underserviced. Ask for examples of social media sites they manage, online reputation work, PPC management, etc.

Don't be bamboozled by a fast talking or aggressive salesman. Find a company that is willing to learn about your company, and that will take time to educate you on theirs. Ask to visit their office and see what they have to offer.

Following the tips we have provided here can save you from a lot of misery and help you to find great success in your online endeavors. Feel free to contact us with any questions. We're here to help!

Choosing A Service Provider (part 2)

2011-03-01T14:49:00.000-05:00

Business people and companies that are seeking internet marketing and website design services frequently make bad choices on who to hire. This often happens becuase they are completely baffled about what to do and default to that "wonderful" choice of lowest price. Our industry is riddled with hacks and low-talent people that mislead clients on what they can do for their business and these are almost always the "low price guys".

I am a strong advocate for taking some time to qualify vendors at two levels. This posting will focus on the first level which are static facts to qualify a company. These are:

1) Does the company have a business license? Ask them for a copy of their license to verify that they are legitimate.
2) Do they have a Federal Tax ID number? If they don't they may be the kind of person or company that will disappear on you.
3) Do they have a regular business office, and/or personnel? Any company with their name on a lease and a support staff is poised to handle business. What you need to beware of are the folks that do this work part-time or "as they feel like it".
4) Do they have any credentials like a Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating, membership in industry associations or a long list of references?
5) How long have they been in business under their current name? Any business that changes names has something to hide. Ask to see copies of their business license for at least 3 years to verify.

These are simple FACTUAL things that you can check to do a preliminary evaluation on any potential vendor. In our next post we will discuss the subjective criteria such as qualifications, work quality and reputation. Check back soon for part 3 of our series on choosing a vendor.

Choosing A Vendor - A Client's Dilemma

2011-03-01T10:17:00.000-05:00

Today I spoke with a potential client who is in the same position as many of the people that come to our company. They desperately need results, have a limited budget and are struggling with "making the right vendor choice" becuase they have been burned by inferior companies. Our goal is to lay all of the cards out on the table and help the prospect to choose the best company for their situation.

Most people who have been burned have an immediate tendancy to make a decision based on the best possible feeling of trust which all too often means turning to a relative or friend-of-a-friend. What they almost always get from this are more bad results and a damaged friendship.

Another route people often go when they have been burned is to question the entire value of internet marketing, especially SEO, and protect their money. They either totally withdraw from any efforts to market their site (a BIG mistake!), or they know that they need to do it and decide to go with the cheapest person they find. They have been conditioned to think that they are wasting money and they (naturally) want to stop wasting money.

One more bad choice in vendor selection can permanantly ruin this person's belief in internet marketing. We do our best to explain that in this business there are a LOT of hacks that chase "easy money" and then there are professionals that get results. Learning how to choose and SEO company, or how to choose a website designer in very important.

Our next post will walk you through some of the things to consider when choosing a website designer, an internet marketing company or SEO company. Stay tuned . . . .

Blue Arrow On Google Adwords? Have no fear . . . for now

2011-02-23T23:25:00.002-05:00

If you've recently noticed a small, medium blue arrow at the top of Adwords ads it's a development related to Google Instant. While it is intended (we think) to offer a new way to navigate, it has the potential to take clicks away from organic rankings and divert them to Adwords ads.

When you get to a page with the distinctive blue arrow, use your down arrow key to move the arrow to another position, use your Enter key to make a selection. You'll probably be amused by this new feature.

We've noticed a hokey website or two trying a leading >> in their website's title tag but have never seen a quality website, including SEO companies or legitimate PPC management companies that use industry best practices, use this kind of gimmick.

No, you can't buy it, but if you have that top Adwords position you'll probably like the results. There is no guarantee on whether or not this will stick around or change. We would like you to leave comments below on your thoughts and experiences on this new feature.

Leave it to Google to push for new ways to improve the Adwords product . . . and create a challenge for SEO practitioners. For now, most SEO professionals are not too concerned.

Social Media For The Anti-Social

2011-02-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

The past few weeks have seen a lot of Social Media activity by Anti-Social people and groups. From socialist Islamists in Egypt to socialist Unions in Wisconsin, Social Media is being used to organize riots, protests and civil disobediance. This brings up a question about a collision of two ideals -

Is the use of Social Media for the purposes of inciting and organizing civil unrest a matter of Free Speech or is it an act of Conspiracy that is prosecutable under federal or state laws? The Patriot Act allows for surveillance of certain communications for the purposes of detecting terrorists and acts of terrorism. Certainly the destruction of government property, acts of physical violence and criminal trespassing could qualify as acts of terrorism.

While the odds of prosecution for these criminal acts is unlikely (at this point) it is conceivable that it could happen. What are your thoughts on where this could go and how governments might monitor or leverage access to social media communications to control the populace?

Mobile Marketing, Mobile Media and Mobile Advertising in 2011

2011-02-02T21:41:00.000-05:00

Industry analysts are predicting a surge in mobile search marketing. Obviously this will be more prevalent in major markets however the growth of mobile marketing will expand into even remote and isolated geographical areas. Now is the time to begin planning (hopefully acting on) your mobile search strategy and tactics. Here are a few recommendations for consideration:

Act sooner rather than later to get the drop on your competition. If you don't want to handle it yourself, allocate funds to hire a mobile marketing company.

Mobile marketing is an incredible opportunity to put your business in front of potential customers when they are searching and ready to buy. Some of your options are mobile coupons, utilization of QR codes or SMS, and develop content that allows for fast location of key contact information for your business.

Mobile Apps can be developed for your business. A custom App will allow you to increase brand recognition and control your messaging to customers. If you have a business with repeat customers you are a top candidate for a Mobile App. Take advantage of the "retweet" approach wherein you utilize recently released content to feed your mobile campaign.

Mobile Devices are not all alike. You will need to become familiar with what works on different smart phones and mobile devices. Obviously you want to target iPhones, Androids and other top selling devices. Understand how your target audience uses mobile and market accordingly.

Mobile usage research is critical in order to acieve optimal, or even acceptable, results. Before embarking on a mobile marketing campaign, make certain that you have a decent understanding of best practices and how your customers use their mobile devices.

In summary, learn about mobile marketing, develop a plan, engage professionals to consult on, or execute, your mobile marketing plan. Then measure and adjust to leverage this growth channel for engaging more customers.

Google Places Quality Guidelines

2011-01-09T22:44:00.001-05:00

We get calls from people wanting ideas on how to set-up their Google Places account. The process is really quite simple - be truthful and fill-out as much info as possible. Google provides Google Places Quality Guidelines which can keep you on track and prevent you from taking liberties that might harm your ability to be included on search results.

While following these guidelines will technically get you through the process there are some ways to (legally) optimize the relevance of your listing for your placement. We routinely help clients find the absolute optimum content to help their online ranking viability. As a general place to start we offer the following information.

Ownership: A Google Places listing should be claimed or set-up by only the business owner or their representative. (NEVER try to claim the name of a competing business!)

Business Name To Be Displayed: Should be exactly as it would appear on a sign or business card. Don't try keyword stuffing anywhere in your listing! I know that you see competitors doing it but it will eventually cause a problem.

Business Location: Use exact information to enable the map functionality to work properly. There is an option to "not display my address" if there is a need to not disclose your location (i.e., home based business where you cannot receive customers) Any Google Places listing MUST be a physical office location - not a P.O. Box or general office park address.

Multiple Locations: You may hand type or submit a spreadsheet (in a proper format) if you have multiple locations. Do not create multiple listings for a single location, which includes using multiple city names.

Content Suggestions:
- Phone number should be a local number (land or cell). You have an option to add a toll free number.
- Website Address should be a complete URL to your home page.
- Categories should include at least one suggested category. You may create your own categories for the remaining four spaces. Do not add a city/state to any category name.
- Business Description should be "factual" and not ad/marketing content. Do not duplicate categories or other info previously provided. used in your content.ns) or things it sells (e.g. Sony products or printer paper). This information can be added in your description or as custom attributes.
- Service Area should be a defined radius as this seems to work better that defining "points of reference".
- Photos, up to 10 can be uploaded, and will be displayed in the order that you upload. Your first image should be a powerful image such as your BBB logo, logo, or image that represents your business.
- Video content can be uploaded if it is your content. Google favore video content so we definitely recommend uploading at least one video.
- Content Fields are provided for noteworthy content such as brands carried, specialties, accreditations, etc.
- Google Tags are available to help your Places listing stand out from the pack. These are the "yellow arrows" that you have seen on some listings. The cost from Google is $25 per month and the Tag can be used as a link to your website, your location map and a few other choices.

For more information please feel free to get in touch with us or visit our page on Local Search Marketing

Social Media Marketing

2011-01-08T00:57:00.002-05:00

We don't deny that there is a huge social media movement. What we question is the (current) frenzy to drive it into business settings. We would like to hear from you on your thoughts.

From our perspective, social media is the modern version of the old party-line telephone. Everybody can check in and catch up on the latest gossip, friends can keep in touch regardless of distance, and people can express their opinions to a wider audience. The issue to be debated is how this medium can really benefit businesses.

We are users of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Linkedin and others social media sites. We honestly cannot assign a single lead or order to our social media efforts. Living in the Obamaconomy it may have been useful to let our clients know that we are doing well in a less than stellar economy. But is the hype really worth the time commitment?

Brand development and PR are our top reason for using social media. All of the "experts" put forth theories on how to monetize social media sites. Has anyone truly found business success on social media sites? Does the average person really care about your latest office move, product launch or self promotion? Are social media sites really driven by self absorption and an overstated sense of self worth?

Stepping back it is easy to see social media sites as a place for people of common interests to congregate, then entice business owners with the opportunty to "get in front of the masses", and then sell advertising space. Our company, and clients, spend a lot of time on social media marketing. We have not found any overwhelming endorsements for the business use of social media. We are hoping that all of our efforts will deliver a measurable benefit in the near future . . . otherwise social media is just a new version of the old paryt-line telephone line. What are your thoughts on social media?

Video Marketing Services

2011-01-05T17:45:00.000-05:00

If your business has not started to leverage video marketing services you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Video content is a regular part of search engine results pages (SERP's) and a tremendous way to get your business in front of more prospects.

Videos for the internet and websites are not necessarily expensive. We have a strategic partnership with a very accomplished production studio that can create high-end videos, complete with model/spokespeople and script writing. For other customers our Level I video production is a very affordable way to create web quality videos.

The Level I video is done on-site with a usual piece being 1-2 minutes long. Eliminating the cost of models, editing and production crews means that in about two hours you can have four to five good videos for about $600. Our Premium video services have costs that can range from $2,500 to $28,000 depending upon the costs for production crews, models, scripting, lighting, travel, editing, etc. Obviously a Premium video requires much more planning however the end result is a TV quality video.

Video marketing services are best used to introduce an interesting venue, retail store or professional services including attorney videos, dental videos and medical videos. Other uses are client testimonial videos, demo or training videos, and general promotional videos.

Video marketing services can provide your business with powerful, personalized content that can be displayed on your website, uploaded to viral channels like YouTube, or reproduced onto DVD's for use as mailers.

Contact us for more information on our video marketing services including video production, video marketing and integration of videos on a website.

Local Search Marketing & Local Search Optimization

2011-01-03T10:41:00.000-05:00

I think that by now most business owners have developed an appreciation for the necessity of having competitive placement in local search listings. These same business owners are coming to understand that much like their website, they need local search optimization.

For those that don't know, local search marketing largely centers around business listings on Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local. There are numerous other local search listings, including directories, however the aforementioned are the big 3 for any business.

Business owners should know that "Local Search" means just that . . . local. Your local listing will not be displayed, even if optimized, for searches of towns where the business is not located.

Local search optimization is the application of specific techniques to make your local search listing be selected for higher placement among peer listings (business listings in your local area). The options to maximize optimization of your local search listing vary between sites. These limitations, and the competitive landscape, are the biggest factors in what action you need to take for local search optimization.

While placement is the top concern, the content of your local search listing is what will "optimize" your conversion rates. As with SEO and website design, getting found is one thing - getting contacted is another.

Local search ranking factors generally boil down to quality of content. The basic rule of thumb for local search optimization is to provide complete and accurate information. Don't be "salesy" or try to manipulate the system. There are formulas for creating effective content which are too involved to explain here.

A bit of good news for business owners is that local search optimization generally is a "do it right once and leave it alone" proposition. You may need to occasionally update your listing however it won't require much ongoing time or expense. The cost to have an internet marketing firm create and optimize your local search listing is dwarfed by the benefits.

Contact us to learn more about our affordable services for creating local search listings and local search optimization. You may also choose to read more at this local search marketing web page.

Website Redesign Process - Get Going in 2011!

2011-01-02T14:14:00.001-05:00

There's no time like the present to get started on your website redesign project. If your website is over 3-4 years old it probably needs a facelift and some serious attention to on-page SEO. Chances are that a website redesign can cost far less than you expect, and you will capture sales within 1-2 that pay for the website redesign many times over.

You can click the link to find a very helpful Website Redesign Planning Guide available as a PDF download. This planning guide can help you to work through a methodical website redesign process and avoid common mistakes.

A few highlights from the Guide are how to select a qualified website redesign company, Web 2.0 user considerations, desireable functionalities and a link to an absolutely awesome color scheme selector.

We hope that your business has a superb 2011. Seriously consider the benefits of a website redesign and get started early in 2011!!!

Google Boost - Get On It Quick For More Customers

2010-12-24T23:26:00.003-05:00

Google has recently launched a beta version of a product names Boost. Saavy internet marketers will plan ahead for this innovative enhancement to a Google Places listing. Getting on top of Google Boost early can mean more customers!

Presently, Google Boost beta is available in a limited number of cities and states. As with Google Tags we anticipate that a wide rollout will happen very soon. E-Platform Marketing and TigerSEO Marketing are already working with this product with clients in San Francisco.

Google's Boost ads display for locally targeted search queries. They appear in the Adwords results and can be identified by a blue ballon icon (similar to the bubble icon on Google Places maps).

The ads can contain basic business information including business name, phone number, address, and the typical local listing features such as customer reviews and ratings.

We are excited about this product based on the results our clients have experienced. For more information feel free to contact us directly or leave a comment below.

Foursquare For Business, For Profits

2010-12-22T00:23:00.000-05:00

Foursquare - learn it.

Foursquare is a social media site that is rapidly becoming a serious contender to Twitter . . . and rightly so. Foursquare has the lightning info distribution of Twitter but also incorporates personal interactivity similar to Facebook. We are very high on Foursquare.

Foursquare has the potential to be an excellent Local Search channel for small business owners and franchise operators. It is easy to "add a venue", claim it and then leverage the ability to get great visibility and promotion opportunities.

You can connect Foursquare to your Facebook and Twitter accounts to further accelerate your content delivery. We strongly suggest that you get your business on Foursquare and reach more customers.

Online Reputation Management - An Essential Game Changer

2010-12-21T22:01:00.000-05:00

If your business relies on customers that would be considered "local" you should familiarize yourself with online reputation management. People who need a local service (or store) are increasingly on websites that allow user ratings and consumer reviews. Anyone who has been in business for very long knows that there will always be customers that cannot be satisified and complain unreasonably. Unfortunately these people can now post online reviews and do lasting harm to your reputation. The remedy is to engage in active online reputation management.

Your choices here, as with most things in life, are to do it yourself or get someone else to do the work. If you are extremely busy, have a lot of negative press to clear up, or simply don't want to be bothered you can hire an experienced Online Reputation Management Company. If you choose the Do It Yourself route here is a quick roadmap for better results.

First, identify the most visible directory websites for your type of business. Check to see if these sites allow consumer reviews and, if so, take time to thoroughly read every review and identify problem content.

Second, use automated methods (manual checks are VERY time consuming) to monitor the web for new content about your company. This will provide you with a heads-up on any new negative content to add to your cleaning list.

Third, begin to address each instance of negative reviews. Prioritize the order of sites to manage and do them one at a time for easier management. Every site presents its own challenges, opportunites and restrictions for managing comments and reviews. This is where the do-it-yourselfer can find the process too complicated. Typical options include direct contact to ask the site managers to remove the offending or inaccurate posts, create counter content to present "your side of the story", or use various methods to displace the negative content. Providing a counter opinion shows that you are taking ownership, and most people understand that there are two sides to every story.

Choosing to ignore the active management of online content and reviews is asking for disaster. While you may recognize the customer who posts bad comments, and know why it happened, there are hundreds of potential customers who will poorly judge your business based on the negative comments.

The cost for a online reputation mangement service varies depending on the service provider, however it is almost always far less than the cost of years of lost business.

Google Instant - A Different Perspective

2010-11-04T18:31:00.000-04:00

The impact of Google Instant on SEO is under much scrutiny. While the popular argument proposes that this means a dire impact on the long-tail search we do not automatically agree.

Google Instant, for those not in the know, is a new feature that populates popular search phrases as you type your query into the search bar. This supposedly offers a convenience to the user. We think that it may prove to be an annoyance. Why? It's very simple. What I seek is based on MY NEED, not based on popular searches. I suppose Google Instant may work for those people that want to search for the most current pop culture tragedy however it is probably of very little use for consumers and business professionals.

An example would be my desire to purchase a particular brand and model of computer. As I enter in what I want, what is popular is of no interest to me. In fact, to intervene in my search is annoying.

Google is quite an innovator regarding internet tools however I think that Instant will not make profound changes on SEO or web searching. Future advancements with the technology may make a difference but only if it is based more on search history from the individual's computer and not popular searches. I don't envision Google Instant changing our SEO process.

Reasons To Avoid A Partnership

2010-09-23T23:01:00.001-04:00

If you have talked to many business people who have had partnerships you have undoubtedly heard a LOT of horror stories. I personally have spoken to over 20 people who opened up to me about partnership fiascoes. Believe me - the whole truth is far worse than the individual tales that you hear. After hearing so many people speak of the problems that had arisen from partnerships I felt compelled to write a piece that may save others from this misery.

At face value a partnership, much like communism or socialism, sounds so blissful. Everyone works hard and everyone shares in the fruits of the labor. The reality is there is always a portion that does the majority of the work and a portion that exists by sucking the life out of the working majority. Interestingly enough, the parasitic group always thinks that they should be in charge - usually to get the power to protect their sorry existence. In partnerships, this is often what comes to be.

Typically if you are approached by someone who "wants to be your partner" they have had a bit of self reality that they lack certain (often a LOT) of skills for the particular endeavor they choose to pursue. Somehow, they have targeted you as the competent and able individual who can take them to heights they would never reach on their own. Thus they plead their case at how great it would be to form a partnership and find incredible success together. Often they will try to be your best friend - basically it's a con job to convince you into believing that they are a great friend. They act as an illusionist - they distract you with one hand while they do their trickery with the other.

In the beginning all partners, good or bad, will communicate well and work with you to plan and execute successful business strategies. This is because each partner is allowing the other to apply their own skills and build the business. Shortly after there is a steady period of success the bad partner types will begin to morph into scheming and controlling people (their real form). At this point they begin to become very secretive about their behaviors, show signs of distrust for you (projection), and weasel their way into controlling finances and the customer base. Inversely, the rare good partners continue to work closely with you and you feel a genuine sense of camaraderie.

When the bad partner begins to emerge from their fake front the average honest partner will discount or make excuses for the perceived ill behaviors, then they will move through a denial period because such behaviors are not a considered behavior for themselves. By the time the honest, hard working partner realizes what is going on the bad partner will typically have gained a strategic position to effectively steal the company for themselves. In one case, we heard of a partner who had been brazen enough to approach customers and tell them that he was starting his own business and tried to divert customers in his direction. Fortunately the customers found this to be a disgusting act that clearly displayed reasons for NOT following the bad partner.

The bad partner is essentially looking for someone they can use to gain an opportunity to make money. Unfortunately for them, their behaviors and lack of ethics will be the cause of their ultimate failure. For the good partner, a bad partner can cause financial losses from lost customers, attorney fees to battle through dissolution, and significant personal misery from dealing with what is essentially a scam artist. Of the people with whom we have spoken, the good partner can find success, usually even greater success, within 1-3 years after dissolving the bad partnership. Our recommendation is that the only partnerships that seem to work are professional partnerships such as attorneys, doctors or financial professionals.

In over 90% of the people with whom we spoke, following the dissolution of the partnership and when both partners remained in the same business, the bad partner became obsessed with the good partner. The bad partner attempted to rabidly emulate the style of the good partner only to find that they are incapable of doing so. The bad partner typically did not last over 2 years (post dissolution) before realizing total failure. This effectively brought things full circle - the good partner continues to be successful while the bad partner cannot achieve success without the good partner. Sometimes, there is justice in nature.

Personally, we think that partnerships are a very bad idea. Before you START a partnership, do a deep background check on your potential partner, ask yourself if what they can bring to the table can be hired in lieu of sharing ownership rights, and have an attorney create a very solid partnership agreement. If all of these don't check out, especially if you get pushback on the agreement, you should walk away immediately! Before entering into ANY partnership, think long and hard about your future and critically assess if you truly need a partner.

Internet Marketing vs. Yellow Pages Advertising

2010-09-19T21:00:00.000-04:00

It's becoming painfully clear to the yellow pages people that their glory days for the phone books are over. Unfortunately for consumers the yellow pages advertising companies have worked hard for several years to develop internet advertising to stop their massive loss of print advertising revenue. The internet yellow pages (IYP) is a bigger "game" than the print book ever came close to being. With this said, let's look at "Real Internet Marketing" and "Yellow Pages Advertising".

First, as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Do a Google search for most anything and make a note of how often the IYP website is not to be found. This means that a real Search Engine Optimization Company can beat the pants off of the phone companies when it comes to getting a business on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing (or any other search engines). Obviously there is no way to believe that a potential customer would not click through to a business website listed on the first page of the search results. This is the most obvious, and most objective manner, to see that IYP is a poor option for increasing your online traffic.

Second, convenience is a critical success factor. Web users want the fewest click to gratification. Let's look at two user experiences and you decide which is more convenient. ONE, a click to Google to start the search, a secong click to a website in the organic placement, and (possibly) a third click to another page of the chosen website - BAM, 2-3 clicks and the prospect has their selection. TWO, a click to Google to start the search, (assuming visibility) a click to the IYP site, another click for the "heading category", another click to one of the IYP listings (which shows little to no info about the company), and then another 1-3 clicks to get info and maybe visit the business website - 4-6+ clicks to view just one business. Again, a site with effective SEO crushes IYP.

Now for the subjective evaluation. An IYP listing provides little information unless you dig deeper into the IYP site. Unlike a search engine like Google which applies a Quality Score to a business website, the IYP site gives better placement to the company that pays the most money. From a usability standpoint, you probably have to work hard to get a "pure" list of companies. The IYP model does not serve the user as much as the advertiser - you pay high prices and they try to get you more traffic . . . so you will continue to pay high prices for IYP advertising. (notice that the quality for the web user is not part of this equation.

What about cost? IYP can bleed a company to death. The sales reps confuse you, generate fear and concern to "spread you out" into all of the various headings that they created, and then you go into the sales pitch about what you have to spend to get listed high in each one of the selected headings . . . . and keep paying every month, for as long as you can bear the burden. With a good SEO service you can often make a one-time intitative to gain significant ranking improvements and, if needed, pay a modest fee for temporary SEO work to improve or expand your search engine ranking. And, with an SEO and internet marketing company, you can expect truly personal service and have consistency in your contact people.

Our clients that have significantly reduced, or entirely eliminated, their yellow pages advertising (and switched to SEO/internet marketing services) consistently report vastly improved ROI's at much lower costs. For more information please leave a comment and get our thoughts.

How Do You Start Your Day?

2010-09-14T07:50:00.000-04:00

How you begin your work day can have a dramatic impact on your productivity. A key part of a productive day is being in control of your time. A fundamental part of controlling your time is to have a rolling list of your priorities. Naturally things will arise during your work day which will require immediate action however, working from an agenda can lessen the chances of getting significantly off course.

The best way to begin your day comes from how you ended the previous day. You need adequate sleep in order to feel fresh and energized when you arise. Also, a good nights sleep makes it easier to get up on time and avoid beginning your day in a panic rush to be on time.

Arriving to your work at least 30 minutes early will not only earn you a good reputation, but it will allow you precious time to review your day's plan and get through some basic tasks. First, check your voice mail and email to make certain that you have the latest information sent to you. Reply to all before your normal start time. This shows that you are very responsive, PLUS it prevents you form getting bombarded with follow up inquiries all at once, at your usual start time. In fact, it pushes the demand for action upon the other person which buys you a little time in your morning. Returning a voice mail witha voice mail also helps you to avoid protracted phone conversations.

The worst manner to start your work day is to wake up with barely enough time to get to work. Your appearance will be lacking, your rushed entry will make you seem disorganized, and your mind will not be focused when you arrive. When you arrive late, your voice mails and emails will immediately set the direction for your morning and you may not get on track until nearly lunchtime. If you are in sales this could cost you a lot of money . . . and hinder your ability to "hit your numbers".

If you are not inclined to arrive at work early then at least remember this; if 8:00 a.m. is when work starts that does not mean that is when you should arrive and spend 15-20 minutes putting away your jacket, unpacking your briefcase and strolling to the coffee maker. If you find yourself being careless with your time (and your employers time) you should perhaps consider changing jobs to find something which motivates you to be responsible. Whatever you do, arrive ready to work and perform your work at maximum levels!

The Importance of a BBB Accreditation

2010-09-13T23:17:00.002-04:00

BBB Acreditation is a great thing for any legitimate business. If a company truly has passed the BBB background check they can display the BBB logo on any marketing material including a website. If you see the BBB logo on a website you should be able to click on the logo to visit the BBB site and confirm that the company is a legitimate BBB member.

The blunt facts are that society, as a whole, has been conditioned to excuse behavior that is immoral, unethical and even criminal. While there may be an initial "gasp", the public quickly forgets about the misdeeds, and in some cases the ill-behaved party becomes a pop celebrity. When it comes to being a business owner it is very important to know that you are not working with, or about to hire, one of these unscrupulous people or companies. A great way to get an objective idea is to check with the Better Business Bureau.

When you are evaluating a potential supplier, vendor or partner company you obviously undertake some due diligence. If this includes checking references, you can feel certain that you will be provided with only references that are guiaranteed to give a glowing rating. Beyond this you don't have much else in the way of external credentials. This is where it can help you to look at a company's BBB rating or perhaps their info on Manta or D&B.

D&B or Manta require a certain level of input from the company to build a profile, and then have to do a lot of work to keep the infoprmation current. The beauty of a BBB rating is that if there is anything negative, there is a good chance that the offended party will take the initiative to post a complaint with the BBB.

From the standpoint of obtaining BBB accredidation, it can really make your business stand out - and get the credit you deserve for running a good business operation. It could very well be the deciding factor when a potential customer is down to only a few potential suppliers.

In a business like ours (internet marketing and web design) there are a LOT of flakey freelancers and shady outfits. We often hear tales of customers paying nice sums of money only to have their "web designer" disappear, stop calling back, or never providing any work. To set ourselves apart we went through the BBB approval process.

There is a great satisfaction in receiving BBB acceptance and seeing that a background check produced zero customer complaints and you have an "A" rating. Our clients have commented about it so we know that they like the reassurance that we are a solid and reliable company. We think that a BBB accredidation is a grerat asset for any company.

The Obamaconomy and Your Business

2010-09-09T13:29:00.000-04:00

Every business owner and manager is keenly aware of the miserable state of the Obamacomony. Wherever we turn we hear of layoffs, cutbacks, business closings, bankruptcy, foreclosure and other financial travesties. All of this means that there are normal business concerns that should be elevated in bad economic times.

Everyday that you are in business you must be aware of financial losses from low margins on sales, supplier rip-offs, employee theft and non-pay customers. In dire economic times these sitautions should be a much greater concern . . . with a few more additions.

Suppliers, whether it is the company itself or just an unscrupulous delivery person, can cause losses for your business. The additional concern is that you make a substantial payment to a supplier on Friday only to learn on Monday that they filed for bankruptcy, and you lost your money. It may take longer to get credits for returns or receive any earned bonuses, rebates or incentive funding which can impact your cash flow.

Employee theft may increase for any of several ways. Obviously employees hat are cash strapped may be tempted to skim from the register, take donation money, or steal or forge checks. Employees may be tempted to steal product to sell for cash. Employees may also try to work side deals with your customers to make extra money. Being alert, and moving employees around (including changing up their interaction with customers) can make a big difference.

The last two, customer non-pay and low sales margins, are increasingly related. When times get tough there are less sales opportunities. This means that sellers tend to accept orders for much lower prices which obviously means that the risk of financial loss is very real. Further, it's often a distant thought that the people placing orders may be in bad financial shape. This means that a company may spend their time and money to fulfill an order only to not receive payment or have payments drag far beyond 120 days. Taking on too many of these orders will consume your cash flow or credit line and effectively stall (read:KILL) your business.

You should look for trouble signs and intervene when you perceive a problem. It's your business so don't be afriad to ask questions, change payment terms or even put some customers on lower credit lines. Red flags can include a customer making payments far slower than normal, finding "reasons" for unpaid invoices, switching from cash payments to credit cards, asking for very lenient credit terms, or suddenly adding other suppliers (where that negotiated lower prices to switch).

We believe that you never want "all of the business" - there is a lot of business that you don't want. When times get bad the volume of "business you don't want" may be higher. We all know that money is the lifeblood of every business. Keep an eye on yours and don't lose your business when trying to survive the Obamaconomy.

Have Your Google Reviews Disappeared?

2010-09-08T21:23:00.001-04:00

Many people have had an unsettling experience when they realize that all of their hard earned reviews on Google Places are missing. While this is a minor cause for alarm it it generally believed that they will be restored at some point. Google has explained in their own forum that this can happen when Google does major system updates.

On a side note, we hope that people understand that the originating IP address of your reviews might also be an issue. If clients are in your office when they post a review it is possible that Google thinks that your company is posting spam reviews because they all have the same IP address. While requesting a client to post a review "on the spot" and know that it gets done, it may prove to be ill received by Google.

Some people have suggested keeping a separate record (copy) of the posted reviews with the name of the customer posting the review. Probably not a bad idea since reviews (testimonials) can be used in a lot of places!

Keep working for all of the reviews that you can get and trust that Google will take care of you - even if it's recovering from a glitch in the system.

Google Places Changes

2010-09-08T21:16:00.001-04:00

Recently, Google enhanced several features of its Local Business Center and rebranded it Google Places. Among the new features is an ability to specify the regions a business serves. But will the new changes help B2B marketers serving a larger region get found?

Most B2B company locations serve a large region, and it can be challenging to get found in the local search results for geo-targeted search queries. Let’s say a business is located in Gary, Indiana, and primarily serves the Chicago area. Downtown Chicago is about 30 miles away from Gary. With the new features in Google Places, the business can specify whether it primarily serves customers at its location or serves customers at other areas in the region.

Google Places now allows the business to specify the zip codes, cities, or counties it services, or specify a service-area radius from the business location, apparently up to 600 miles. This should be great, especially, dealers, distributors, and others serving a broad region.

At first, this sounds like a promising enhancement; now the Gary company may be able to better compete with rivals whose addresses physical location is closer to Chicago. Hopefully, the ability to specify service regions will lead to more visibility in the local search results, right?

Probably not.

While it’s yet too early to determine the extent to which this information will influence visibility in the local search results, I’m guessing it will have little impact.

When you first receive local search results for a query, the map is usually pretty tight; it’s not unusual to have the top ten local search results in a radius of 10-20 miles. If there is little competition in a given area, you might get shown a bigger map so more search results can be included. However, unless your information somehow is so highly relevant to a searcher’s query, closer businesses will almost certainly be more visible in the local search results.

There’s nothing necessarily unfair about this; most searchers using geo-specific queries want to know the closest businesses first. And there’s nothing wrong with including the information on the service areas; it will be beneficial to searchers when reviewing details of a given search result.
Here is a reprint of an article by Galen DeYoung, found at the SearchEngineLand.com website. It discusses what might be expected from the recent changes to Google Places (formerly Google Local).

Many B2B companies serving broad geographic regions may be suddenly relieved there is an apparent solution to their challenge of getting found for geo-specific queries, but I wouldn’t expect this new feature to have a material impact on local-search-result visibility. Don’t think merely specifying a region or service area is going to displace your competitors’ visibility.

Better to keep your focus on optimizing other aspects of your business listing data be highly relevant to target queries and employ non-maps strategies (i.e., organic and paid web search results) for getting found for geo-specific queries.

Thoughts On Logo Design

2010-09-06T23:24:00.000-04:00

Your logo is the face of your business. It is, arguably, the single most important part of your company's branding. Every part of your logo design puts forth tangible and intangible messages. Is your logo saying what you need it to say?

Our logo clients typically have trouble conveying what they want. The first problem is that they are usually poor designers yet have tried to rough out a design . . . and the battle starts here. The logo design firm then has to "unsell" the bad design before they can move on to a good design. The best clients provide a list of about ten adjectives that describe their business or business culture. These words, in the hands of an intuitive designer, can yield superb logo creations.

Here are some things TO DO and NOT TO DO.

1. Don't rely on family or friends to be your designer. And don't argue that "they have a good eye for design" or "they took a design course in school". Your potential logo designer will laugh hysterically when they leave the meeting. Let a professional do, what a professional does.

2. Pre-qualify your prospective design firm by reviewing their portfolio to see if their work is compatible with your tastes. Get a few references to check on the designers record for timely work and good attitude.

3. Set a reasonable budget. If you expect to get a good logo for under AT LEAST $250 you are in for a big surprise. Remember too that your designer is assuming a set number of hours to meet with you, discuss the project, create designs and make a few minor revisions. It is unfair and unreasonable to expect days or weeks of work for a small fee. Would you work days for $100? What you get is a direct reflection of how you, as a client, treat the designer.

5. Use a step-by-step process to create your logo. Agree on colors, fonts, any special images and then work into styling.
If these steps fail, perhaps the best logo isn't the one you personally love. Instead, your business may be better served by creating a logo that appeals to your clients.

Our bottom line advise is to understand that your logo is important, you will have to live with it a long time, and being in a rush or being cheap will haunt you. Hire the right logo designer, work together and you can definitely get a logo of which you will be proud.

E-Mail Campaigns - Increasing Open Rates

2010-09-05T21:44:00.001-04:00

The "OPEN RATE" is the key component of any email campaign. This relates to the subject line in your email. Without a good subject line your email is automatically deleted by a spam filter or simply ignored by the recipient. Simply put, subject lines can either make or break your marketing efforts.

Subject lines are among the first thing the recipient will notice when checking their inbox and they will make an immediate decision to open or delete your email. You need a powerful, interesting and spam-filter-friendly subject line in order to truly be successful.

Here are some tips:

1. Don't Use Trickery!
A subject line proclaiming "You Won A Prize" will get the attention of many people however if they open the email to find out they have been misled, all you have achieved is delaying the deletion of your email by about 4 seconds. Nobody likes to be tricked - don't use trickery.

2. Consider Spam Filters
Most email programs have built-in spam filters. Some have the ability for a user to adjust the sensitivity of the filters which means your subject line is under some level of scrutiny before it is delivered. You need to learn about words or phrass that trigger spam filters to pounce. USing words like "free" "marketing" "order today" "special offer" or other things that sound "salesy" could kill your email on arrival. You would be better off to use a neutral subject line with something to normalize it's arrival. One tactic is to start the subject line with "Re:" or "Fwd:" to make it appear that this is a reply to the recipient such as "Fwd:Updated Information"

3. Immediate Personalization
Successful email campaigns utilize friendly, personalized subject lines as an effective way to improve open-rates. The better you know your targeted recipient the better off you will be. If you are selling or promoting a high-ticket product or service it may be well worth it to send the email with a manually entered subject line that includes the name of the person. A sense of familiarity carries a trust factor that can often boost the open-rates of any e-amil campaign.

4. Test, Measure and Revise
Send a few, smaller e-mail blasts and measure the results of each. Adjust the top results and settle in on a few that work. Often, sending a e-mails ona regular basis can result in higher respose rates. And don't forget the method of sending yourself the same email and judge how it strikes you.

Think, plan and always work to improve your tactics. Email campaigns are not a perfect silver bullet but, if done well, can produce amazing results.

Selecting an Internet Marketing Company

2010-09-05T21:24:00.000-04:00

There are numerous articles online about how to select the best internet marketing company, website design company, seo company, etc. Most of the articles or forum postings have good, logical information. We would like to provide some information that is timely and usually overlooked.

The web design, seo and internet marketing industry has long been home to a lot of "hacks" that have limited skills and rip-off unsuspecting business owners. As the economy has worsened, and more people are out of work, the number of people prmotin gthemselves as "website designers" or "seo professionals" has dramatically increased.

These people misrepresent themselves, often using portfolios with templated sites that make it appear that they are really talented people. With a little bit of fast talk and some industry jargon they seem to be knowlegeable too. It's six weeks after you pay the deposit, and no or bad work is handed over, that you figure out that you have been burned. So how do you avoid this growing problem?

First, we strongly suggest confirming that they have a business license. There are a LOT of people operating unlicensed and without any accountability. Second, we suggest requesting verifying that they have been in business at least 3 years (hopefully longer) and have references to support their claims. Third, ask specific questions regarding their use of website templates, providing live examples of seo success, and providing any credentials such as Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce memberships.

Taking an hour or two to fully qualify a vendoe can prevent you from being ripped off, embarassed or otherwise taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. For more information, send us a message and we will send you a FREE vendor qualification guide.

Online Reputation Management

2010-09-03T22:23:00.000-04:00

People are beginning to awaken to the term "Online Reputation Management". This is a term for the actions taken to scour the internet for negative comments, reviews, posts or other content about your company, firm, practice or person. With the abundance of blogs, forums, gripe sites, and online review sites there are opportunities for disgruntled cutomers, ex-employees, and even unscrupulous competitors to post content that will be very damaging to your online reputation, branding and the perception of potential customers. Therefore, it is extremely important to locate any negative content and neutralize it as quickly as possible.

How do you do this? First, you must be willing to invest a lot of personal time or hire a qualifed reputation management company to handle the work. Whoever gets the assignment should be able to do extensive internet searches on the major search engines to find any problem content. Your initial endeavor into this research will consume a LOT of time. After the initial research it will be easier to maintain an eye on new content posted online.

When you find negative content you need to assess your options to neutralize the problem. Depending upon the site where the information resides, and the age of the information, your task could be relatively easy or could require exhaustive efforts to manage a successful outcome.

Your options, in order of preference, are to get the information totally removed (unindexed), attempt to post a rebuttal statement, or displace the information from a high visibility placement. The tactics to do these things take far too much time to explain in detail however it is well worth your time to learn how to do this or to hire a reputation management company as soon as possible.

In most cases a reputation management company can perform a relatively inexpensive "top level review" to find any significant problems. Obviously you can engage the company to dig deeper if you need a greater sense of comfort. When any information is found, the company can provide you with an estimation on the time, cost and expected results from their efforts to neutralize the problem content. Some companies offer results-based-fees while some companies charge for their time without any guarantee of any specific results.

The one certainty is that negative online content will damage your business reputation, branding and customer perceptions. We believe that it is worth a phone call to learn more and protect your company.

New Contest - Win $$$$$$

2010-09-01T00:48:00.001-04:00

WIN $$$$$$$ - There is a contest for the month of September. Ending on September 30, 2010, at 11:55 p.m. EST, you could win a $100 prize for getting the most people to "LIKE" the E-Platform Marketing or TigerSEO Marketing Facebook pages.

Have someone visit our page, hit "LIKE" and make a post including your name.

Only one name per new "LIKE" on either page. We'll make periodic posts on who is in the lead for the money! Make sure we have your contact info as it must be on file by the contest deadline in order to avoid disqualification. Good luck!

Thoughts On Direct Mail

2010-08-31T23:43:00.000-04:00

Direct Mail advertising has advocates and detractors. The advocates of direct mail advertising are typically the same group that takes the time to fully think through their campaign. A direct mail campaign is about far more than mailing a bunch of postcards with random pictures and text.

Here are our thoughts on using direct mail.

First, you need to run the numbers. Get at least three prices for what you need. You need to price the direct mail design cost (in and out of house), printing cost, postage cost, and also any costs for buying mailing lists. It would be advisable to get mailing pricing for small, medium and large campaigns. Know that a return rate of 1-2% is typically considered to be acceptable. Factor in the value of an average sale and you can quickly decide if it will work for for you.

Second, take a hard look at what your business really needs. Are you seeking to move a particular product or service? Seeking to get more customers in the door? Trying to sell more high-margin products or services? And then think about what is going to bring you an acceptable ROI.

Second, work on your design. Understand that you have a very limited amount of space on that direct mailer and you need to make the most of it. Don't clutter the space with every photo you can find or paragraphs of text. Use a clean design, with a good color scheme, include your complete address, phone, website address and hours of operation. Let people know the closest major intersection and business park.shopping center where you are located. And have everything proof read by 3-5 people.

Third, meet with your printer of choice to negotiate your best price, and double check your designated card stock and print finish. Confirm the deadline for your order and getthe printing done.

Fourth, order your mailing lists from a company that can also do your direct mail postage. Their ability to get bulk mail rates can save you money. Get the information in formats that you can manage easily and prepare separate mailing campaigns of whatever volume you have defined in step 1. Bring the direct mail company your printed materials and let them launch the campaign.

Fifth, consider keepin a small quantity of your direct mailers in your office to use as a follow up piece for new leads you get through other channels. It allows you to make a quick, professional follow-up with ease.

Other considerations are matching your direct mail to any relevant situations such as seasonal peaks, market demands, grand openings, etc. Direct mail can produce good results if you plan it well.

An Older SEO Overview

2010-08-31T13:30:00.000-04:00

Competition is both a challenge and an opportunity in business. In SEO, your competitors can be the most valued source of data. When performing competitive research, the goals are to discover:

• How entrenched a competitor is and how hard it is to unseat them;
• The competition's SEO skills; and
• Link prospects, so you can trade links, host articles and do reviews.

For analyzing where you stand compared to the competition, using "mortgage loans," a very competitive search term, as an example let’s refer to this as a tier 1 keyword, since it's the top search term within this category.
1. Determine link popularity. Go to Google, type in the tier 1 keyword and pick the top three ranked sites. Then go to marketleap.com and use the link popularity checker to see how your site compares in terms of incoming links to the top three sites from Google. Look for sites with the highest Google rankings and lowest amount of incoming links. Keep in mind that MSN records the highest number of back links--incoming links from one website to another--but also pay attention to the Yahoo! results, since it's the best linking engine to use for link review. Also, Google recently updated its Google webmaster tools and has enhanced its link tracking system. Make sure to get an account and compare the results with the others in this step. Write down all the numbers.

2. Find sites to target. Next, go back to Google and enter "allinanchor: mortgage loans." This restricts the results depending on the number of links coming into a site based on that key word phrase. This will help determine which from which sites target links originate.

3. Review link counts. Go back to Yahoo! and enter "link:www.yourbusinessdomain.com" and review the number of results with the numbers from Marketleap in the first step. Note that Yahoo! orders the list by power, or the sites with the most links coming to them. Those sites are the most important to target and are likely to have a good page rank. At this point, you'll know how much work you have ahead of you. If it seems impossible, start by looking at the fifth step about keyword research to narrow down keyword selections and start again.

4. View source and "on page" SEO factors. Once you've found the top list to target, go to each of the sites and review the source code. Make sure to review the title, description, meta and H1 tags on the sites. They should be programmed as discussed in my previous column, "10 Steps for Increasing Visibility Online." Some handy SEO tools can help you validate your work, including SearchStatus, a toolbar extension for Firefox and Mozilla, and SEO for Firefox. They can help you indicate quickly whether the competition is doing things right.

5. Perform keyword research. Use the search term suggestion tool at inventory.overture.com, which is one month behind in data results, and look for keywords and their permutations with a good search volume. Any number more than 20,000 to 30,000 is a good average. Continue looking at the tier 1-type terms until you spot an opportunity to build on. Use other tools like Google keyword tools, keyworddiscovery.com. Use the keywords you select in this step by adding pages to your site, a common SEO practice.

6. Consider conversion rates. Finally, visit the competitive sites and compare them with your own. Do they have content, flow and site structure that encourage conversion? Are the sites easy to navigate? Do they emphasize call-to-action statements like "download a white paper," "sign up for this newsletter" or "buy this product now"? Look to see if they are using long tail keywords, such as "mortgage loans for police officers in Los Angeles." If they are, then you should consider doing so, too. Misspellings in text on your page also can work, but be careful not to confuse your visitors. A little trick is to include them in a PDF or Word document. Search engines, specifically Google, spider PDF and Office documents.

Competitive research is a serious SEO exercise for gaining advantage online. Having the tools, capabilities and expertise are not enough; you also need to look at traditional media--print, radio and television--to learn what the competition is up to. Fight back with more pages, more content, improved design and source code, and more incoming links with diverse descriptions. Use tools like UrlTrends to track your progress and SpyFu to look at advertising costs, giving you an indicator of your competition's activity, spending and strategy.

Don't forget to open their spam e-mail marketing messages that you receive. You may learn something by studying that material, however painful. Also review what they send you through the regular mail and discover ways to improve your own campaigns, both offline and online.

Link Building

2010-08-31T11:29:00.000-04:00

Link building should be a part of your internet marketing strategy. Backlinks help a search engine to take note of a particular site for a particular service/product/topic. Link building can be done by a qualified link building service or a business owner may decide to do it themselves.

When undergoing a link building campaign it isimportant to understand the ground rules. There are no value links, bad links (which can harm your site), okay links, god links and great links. How do you know one from the other? Great question.

BAD ONES: First, avoid any porn, gambling or "bad neighborhood sites" like black-hat SEO forums. NEVER link to them, even if you are trading links. Second, don't waste time on low traffic, cheap looking sites. It has no value and, by association, makes your site look bad. DO NOT use a link farm - typically comes to you as a cheesy offer (100 hgh quality links for $49). Search engines may penalize your site if you get associated with the link farms.

GOOD ONES: First, learn what is considered "spammy" and play by the rules.
Try to find sites with High Page Rank . Beyond that you would like to get links from sites that are .gov. .edu .org .com, etc.

You can get some links from articles, blog postings, etc. however many of these places have a general "no follow" on all links so you're wasting your time if you are seeking link juice.

Don't forget to get links from "authority sites" like the old DMOZ site, business.com and others.forums, comments in blogs. Know that DMOZ is notoriously slow to add sites - and sometimes may never do it.

As youlearn, or if you have questions, remember to come back to our site and post a comment or question. Good luck on your link building!

New Website or More Marketing?

2010-08-31T00:32:00.000-04:00

When business owners get into a serious assessment of why their website is underperforming the conversation always centers around which is more important - a total website redesign or more SEO/marketing. So which is it?

An effective internet marketing program requires two fundamental pieces:
1) Find and engage qualified prospects. This is largely done with SEO for competitive search engine ranking, local search marketing, and online advertising which includes anything from PPC to directory advertising.
2) Hold and persuade website visitors. Once a prospect gets to your website you need to make it past the 7-second judgment to stay or abandon your site. If they stay your site needs to be easy to navigate and have an adequate amount of information to persuade the prospect that your business is a viable solution for their need.

So, back to which is more important. It depends. If your website traffic vovolume is acceptable you probably have a lame website. If your website traffic volume is too low, the answer is obvious - you need more prospects. A secondary thought for either instance is evaluating the quality of the traffic. Is your website found on search engines for truly relvant phrases? Are you finding the right people?

In many cases, we deal with a business that relied on the brother-in-law approach to get their website created and hosted - it's a disaster every time. In almost every situation like this the business needs to start from scratch on everything.

Whether it is a new website design, or more SEO and internet marketing, this is the time for serious thought on exactly what needs to be done to achieve the desired results. Best practices for internet marketing reqire a thorough knowledge of online user behaviors, search engine algorithms, web design standards, browser requirements and much more. Your best assurance of getting positive results for your investment are to hire a competent and experienced internet marketing company and website design firm.

Check back for our next articles on website redesign criteria and search engine marketing ideas.

Is Social Media Good For A Business?

2010-08-30T13:45:00.000-04:00

Social Media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become quite the thing to do these days. Social media sites receive mixed emotions when considered for business use. In many instances, but not all, social media sites can present a perfect medium to develop and promote your branded image. So what should you consider before venturing down the social media trail?

First, whether or not you decide to get a business page on a social media site, your company should create a Social Media Policy that is given to all employees. A typical social media business policy will advise employees to use the utmost discretion when posting about, or not make any reference to, the company, its employees, vendors or customers. This should cover any text, photos, parodies or other public mentions. It is imperative that a business take this necessary step to protect reputations and branding from the detriment caused by unacceptable online behaviors.

The type of business that can benefit most from a social media site is a business that has customers whose friends and family members are prospective customers. By having an individual "friend" or "like" your business page your business automatically gets a referral which can create a "warm lead".

The most productive business use of a social media site is to engage customers and prospects with useful information, let them know about meaningful developments within your company and discuss (business) things of interest to the customers.

In any event, it is very important for a business to view their social media site as a commitment and make frequent posts. Any blog, forum or social media site that is relatively abandoned will quickly lose any popularity. Always post with discretion and leave 'em wanting more!

Business Logo Design

2010-08-29T16:16:00.000-04:00

Are you thinking of updating your logo or do you need a new logo? We recommend taking some time to think through the design from more than just an aesthetic value. Thinking about it from top to bottom let's review a logo design:

Your logo is the primary visual branding element for your business. As such the design should be reasonably neutral with regards to elements that are trendy and could quickly cause your logo to look dated. Currently this would be something like a drop shadow or any type of elliptical lines. Text treatments are increasingly popular and a viable option for any B2B or industrial business.

Color selection is very important. Generally speaking you want colors that are suitable for your business. Black may look sleek and elegant but it's much more suited for a limo company than a daycare center. If you market globally you may also consider perceptions of colors in different cultures. For example, white is a funeral color in many parts of the far east. Scalability is another consideration. Something like the Starbuck's logo is okay for large signs and on trucks but it becomes unattractive in small scale use like business cards. Remember that using more colors will cause any printing costs to go up. Also, treatments done for internet use may not be able to be reolicated in print.

If your business is new you obviously have no real constraints, but there are considerations. You should try to avoid color schemes that mirror competition color schemes. Never use any graphics or images that are not your property or that you do not have authorization to use.

If you have an existing logo and want to change colors you should consider implementing slight color variations over several years to make the change gradual and virtually unnoticeable.

Some of the best logos are simple, iconic and free of distracting elements. When you hire a logo designer, don't pay over 50% for any deposit, and make ceratin that you get the logo in 72dpi for web use (jpg, gif or png format), 300dpi (min) for print use, a color and a grayscale version. Also be certain to get the original art files (psd or ai files) in case you need to make changes. It is highly recommended to get the logo designed in vector format so that you can resize it without loss of clarity.

Assuming that you hire a good logo designer, don't argue to much with the designer, and don't get design advice from friends and family. Trust your professional designer.

Industrial Website Marketing

2010-08-29T10:54:00.000-04:00

Marketing an industrial website can appear to be a daunting task. With a little planning, and an understanding of your options, you can determine a course of action that will yield the results that you need.

The first course of action is to define your objectives. Are you needing to improve your overall site ranking on search engines? Get keyword specific placement? Expand the breadth of your online visibility?

Next, define your desired timeframe and budget. These two elements are closely linked. In order to get immediate results you need to find opportunities for paid listings. This could include pay per click advertising (i.e., Google Adwords, Yahoo Search MArketing, MSN Ad Center), industrial directories (i.e., ThomasNet, GlobalSpec, Arcat), or general online directories. This is where things can become very confusing and intimidating. There are a LOT of choices, and salespeople don't provide objective recommendations. A knowledgeable internet marketing company can help you to sort through the options, assess reasonable budget numbers, and evaluate the relevance and value of any possible paid inclusion opportunities.

For long term success an industrial company needs to engage the services of a qualified industrial SEO company to achieve top organic search engine placement. SEO services can often yield positive results within a few weeks however SEO should be viewed as a long term strategy for industrial website marketing. SEO services require strategic on-site and off-site work to achieve optimum results. Don't believe that SEO is simply "meta tags" and "adding keywords". SEO is a professional service.

Additional opportunities for industrial website marketing can be created through press releases, articles and even traditional marketing efforts. The simple fact to remember is that if you don't have a commitment to marketing your industrial website you will be handing your competition a lot of business.

Selecting A Web Design Company

2010-08-28T23:06:00.001-04:00

Selecting a web design company can be difficult unless you have a set of standards. Without a set of standards, especially if you are a very trusting person, can cause you to lose your money or receive grossly inferior work.

When you are first developing a list of potential web designers we recommend using this Phase I Criteria:
1) Does the firm have a website and does it look acceptable? You can't expect your site to look very good if they won't do good work for themselves.
2) Does the firm provide these services full-time? Invariably, freelancers and part-timers make your job a lower priority and probably have a lower skill set.
3) Does the firm have a portfolio of at least 30 sites? Any web design firm that has reasonable experience should have no problem in creating a portfolio of 30+ sites - and how do the sites look?
4) Does the designer use only templates? If all or most of their portfolio sites are templates you can bet that they have very liomited design and coding skills, and probably can't handle requests fro customization or special features.
5) Does the design firm offer "post-launch services" such as SEO, search marketing, etc? You will need ongoing services to maintain and develop your site, optimize your site and assist with site promotion, listings and link building.
6) Does the designer/firm have a business license? If they do not have a business license you should be extremely wary and concerned.

Always verify these things and don't simply assume that the salesperson is telling you the truth. Beyond these Phase I qualifications you can feel confident if the potential designer/firm has Better Business Bureau (BBB) Accredidation and has been a full time business for over 5 years.

For more information on how to assess or qualify the sepcific skills and capabilities of a design firm leave us a comment.

What Is Reputation Management

2010-08-28T17:23:00.000-04:00

Reputation Management is one of the hottest topics among smart business owners and managers. Reputation management is the services, including tactics and methods, for locating, managing and neutralizing negative comments or information about a particular business.

As the internet has developed there have been more blogs, forums, local listing review boards, "gripe sites" and other online venues for customers (or even competitors) to post negative comments, start rumors or generally damage a company's brand value and customer perception. Needless to say this can have a profound impact on lead generation and sales revenue.

The solution is to hire a competent reputation management company who will apply the necessary resources to locate, manage and neutralize such negative information. A reputation management service can be done as a one-time audit to take a general assessment of your online reputation, done as a quarterly "keep an eye on it" approach, or a full time engagement to locate and neutralize any damaging information as quickly as possible.

The cost for reputationmanagement services will vary depending upon the size of the client organization (particularly the breadth of their online presence and likelihood of negative comments). In almost every instance the cost of reputation management services will be dwarfed by what a client saves in lost sales revenue.

It is well worth a business owners interests to take at least 10 minutes to contact a reputation management company to learn more about the costs and value of their services - otherwise you are allowing others to silently harm your business.

The Importance of Local Search Listings

2010-08-28T14:42:00.000-04:00

Local Search Listings on search engines should be a top consideration for every business. If there are any doubts let's clarify some basic facts:

1. Search Engine Companies (notably Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask) are run by smart folks. If they create something like "local search", and keep it, then it's safe to assume that people like it and use it. Why purposely ignore the potential customers that use local search listings to find a supplier/vendor?

2. It's a free opportunity to leverage prime internet real estate to reach more prospects. Sure, you can also count on your website's ranking, or utilize pay per click advertising but why would you not want to take advantage of free advertising?

3. It is a great way to compensate for a website that is poorly optimized and does not have high, competitive organic search engine ranking. Your local listing is somethng you can set-up or claim/manage with little effort.

Every business owner should take the time to create their local listing or confirm and mange an existing listing. If you're too busy you can easily hire an internet marketing company to handle it for you at minimal cost.

A local listing typically includes the obvious name, phone and address info but also includes info that is important to consumers. You can list hours of operation, brands carried, payment options, include a business description and lots of other data.

Google Algorithm Change 2010 -Disrupt LongTail Searches

2010-08-28T12:25:00.000-04:00

We've heard from multiple customers of ThomasNet that there catalog pages were becoming un-indexed at an extremely high and fast rate. Obviously this is a critical problem for these business owners. ThomasNet is working on a "fix". For anyone having a similar problem here is a report of and article found on www.SearchEngineLand.com

The article below is credited to Vanessa Fox

Google made between 350 and 550 changes in its organic search algorithms in 2009. This is one of the reasons I recommend that site owners not get too fixated on specific ranking factors. If you tie construction of your site to any one perceived algorithm signal, you’re at the mercy of Google’s constant tweaks. These frequent changes are one reason Google itself downplays algorithm updates. Focus on what Google is trying to accomplish as it refines things (the most relevant, useful results possible for searchers) and you’ll generally avoid too much turbulence in your organic search traffic.

However, sometimes a Google algorithm change is substantial enough that even those who don’t spend a lot of time focusing on the algorithms notice it. That seems to be the case with what those discussing it at Webmaster World have named “Mayday”. Last week at Google I/O, I was on a panel with Googler Matt Cutts who said, when asked during Q&A, ”this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn’t going to be rolled back.”

I asked Google for more specifics and they told me that it was a rankings change, not a crawling or indexing change, which seems to imply that sites getting less traffic still have their pages indexed, but some of those pages are no longer ranking as highly as before. Based on Matt’s comment, this change impacts “long tail” traffic, which generally is from longer queries that few people search for individually, but in aggregate can provide a large percentage of traffic.

This change seems to have primarily impacted very large sites with “item” pages that don’t have many individual links into them, might be several clicks from the home page, and may not have substantial unique and value-added content on them. For instance, ecommerce sites often have this structure. The individual product pages are unlikely to attract external links and the majority of the content may be imported from a manufacturer database. Of course, as with any change that results in a traffic hit for some sites, other sites experience the opposite. Based on Matt’s comment at Google I/O, the pages that are now ranking well for these long tail queries are from “higher quality” sites (or perhaps are “higher quality” pages).

My complete speculation is that perhaps the relevance algorithms have been tweaked a bit. Before, pages that didn’t have high quality signals might still rank well if they had high relevance signals. And perhaps now, those high relevance signals don’t have as much weight in ranking if the page doesn’t have the right quality signals.

What’s a site owner to do? It can be difficult to create compelling content and attract links to these types of pages. My best suggestion to those who have been hit by this is to isolate a set of queries for which the site now is getting less traffic and check out the search results to see what pages are ranking instead. What qualities do they have that make them seen as valuable? For instance, I have no way of knowing how amazon.com has fared during this update, but they’ve done a fairly good job of making individual item pages with duplicated content from manufacturer’s databases unique and compelling by the addition of content like of user reviews. They have set up a fairly robust internal linking (and anchor text) structure with things like recommended items and lists. And they attract external links with features such as the my favorites widget.

From the discussion at the Google I/O session, this is likely a long-term change so if your site has been impacted by it, you’ll likely want to do some creative thinking around how you can make these types of pages more valuable (which should increase user engagement and conversion as well).

Update on 5/30/10: Matt Cutts from Google has posted a YouTube video about the change. In it, he says “it’s an algorithmic change that changes how we assess which sites are the best match for long tail queries.” He recommends that a site owner who is impacted evaluate the quality of the site and if the site really is the most relevant match for the impacted queries, what “great content” could be added, determine if the the site is considered an “authority”, and ensure that the page does more than simply match the keywords in the query and is relevant and useful for that query.

He notes that the change:

•has nothing to do with the “Caffeine” update (an infrastructure change that is not yet fully rolled out).
•is entirely algorithmic (and isn’t, for instance, a manual flag on individual sites).
•impacts long tail queries more than other types
•was fully tested and is not temporary

CMS- An Enemy of SEO

2010-08-28T01:12:00.000-04:00

The purpose of every business website, whether directly or indirectly, is to find new customers. This is best achieved when the client’s website has high ranking in the organic, or natural, search engine results. This is achieved through Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO. The majority of website development companies are obsessed with development technologies and do not understand SEO. As a result website developers often sell clients on Content Management Systems, commonly known as CMS. This is an Internet marketing mistake because CMS is an enemy of SEO.

Why do clients buy into CMS? CMS is an easy sell to many clients because they demand having control of their website. This is like giving a teenager the keys to a sports car – the result is going to be ugly. These clients are obsessed with saving money that they would pay a web company to make content changes. In reality this control results in losing money through missed sales opportunities. Additionally, these clients are unintentionally sending these sales opportunities to their competitors. This defeats any logical reason for having a business website.

Why do website developers promote CMS? At best they simply don’t know better. In all probability it’s because implementing CMS means more money in their development contract and they are so techie oriented that they love to add “geek features”. Remember that website developers are just that, website developers. They are not marketing or sales professionals – certainly not SEO experts. And this goes for those in-house IT people. Don’t get them involved in your website design or development.

Why is CMS an enemy of SEO? SEO is a very complicated process requiring technical knowledge to optimize coding, marketing skills to develop optimized content and overall a sound understanding of how to combine the two elements in a white hat fashion. Knowing that a significant part of the SEO process is in creating optimized content it is obvious why CMS is problematic. It is the vehicle through which a client has the ability to wreck SEO. Clients wanting good Search Engine Optimization results need to give the keys to an SEO professional.

Chances are that spending a few hundred dollars a year for an Internet marketing firm to update your website is completely acceptable when you understand that your new sales will pay for the services. This is a simple cost of doing business for the purpose of having a business website to find new customers. On the other hand you could be obsessed with control, save a few hundred dollars a year in website maintenance expenses, and cost your company thousands of dollars in sales by employing CMS - an enemy of SEO.

Problems With Yellow Pages Websites & Internet Marketing

2010-08-27T22:16:00.000-04:00

The yellow pages business is dying and the phone companies are using Internet products to replace lost revenue. Their Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), template websites, “click programs”, and other gimmick products are riddled with performance problems. The faults and problems with phone company websites and Internet marketing services are something that business owners should know.

Here’s an insider’s view of the yellow page business – Yellow Pages advertising was once a necessary evil for business owners. The phone companies exploited this and squeezed as much revenue as possible from their advertisers. Marketing programs and pricing structures were rolled out that almost forced advertisers to spend more and usually penalized advertisers for downsizing their advertising programs. Products were introduced to create new advertiser-to-advertiser competition with the sole intent to make an advertiser spend more money to keep a competitive presence. Reps are trained in how to “pitch” products to make the biggest possible sale. Sales reps rarely understand the costs or effectiveness of other advertising options and they almost never present fair and objective comparisons that encourage advertisers to spend money elsewhere. The bottom line is that phone companies are experienced in printing phone books and extracting revenue from their customers. They are not experienced in comprehensive Internet marketing and website development. Now, about those problems

Websites –
NOTE: You are locked into long term contracts with limited design and development options.
1) Website designs are “sold” to customers requiring monthly payments for as long as you want the website. The truth is that you do not own the website and it will never be paid off! Over a ten year period you may pay over $30,000 for a website that you would own for $4,000 by using a true web development firm – and you can easily reach your contact at a web design firm.
2) Phone company websites are typically bland templates built out in a production environment that stresses quick completion to start your billing. Aesthetics are sacrificed for speed. Content is created without any real research on the client’s industry, competition or local market situations.
3) Phone company websites do not include true search engine optimization techniques which means that theses sites will hardly ever rank well in competitive headings.
4) Phone company websites do not offer many high value options like multimedia creation, searchable catalogs, e-commerce, website analytics, link building, custom design features.

Search Marketing –
NOTE: You are locked into long term contracts regardless of your satisfaction level. It is in their interest to keep your Internet presence dependent upon using their search marketing products. The performance reports have no backup data, are developed to help with renewals, and do not verify ROI.
1) Submissions to search engines and portals is minimal if done at all.
2) “Click Packages” that hype a number of clicks to your website. This does not equal sales and in many cases you may not have control over the keywords selected to generate clicks.
3) No creation or implementation of critical search engine support elements.
4) No critical support services for link building, press releases, blog development, etc.
5) No support for submissions to vertical directories and other online listing opportunities.

Internet Yellow Pages –
NOTE: Over 85% of all searches happen on Google, Yahoo and MSN. The minor remaining percentage is divided between thousands of vertical directories and Internet Yellow Pages are not your best bet to market your website. It can be very expensive and extremely aggravating.
1) Priority listings get the most calls however they are usually extremely expensive (poor ROI).
2) Specialty products like Tile Ads usually perform horribly despite their prominent placement.
3) Geographic Market exposure is often very limited. Large market customers lose the most here.

If you’re tired of yellow pages books and want to leverage the power of the Internet you should employ the services of a true Internet marketing firm. An Internet marketing firm can provide you with objective advice on search marketing and provide cost effective solutions – not expensive, long term contracts. In any event you should carefully explore your options and avoid these problems in Internet marketing.