Ben Wheeler

Posted: 22 Apr 2010 10:00 PM PDT

In the early 1990s, when I was first online, very few businesses had a website. Gradually companies started coming online, but most of them were those that served a national or global market. While many local directories also came online, it was rare to see a strictly local company with a website. There were some exceptions, like those with professional practices such as dentists, doctors and lawyers. In fact, professional practice websites were some of my earliest SEO clients, although they weren’t in my local area. But even in the mid-2000s, the typical hair salon, plumber or chiropractor were very rare to find online.

About 10 years ago I remember looking for a chiropractor in my area online and could only find one with a website, and it wasn’t even one in my town. Much to my dismay, I ended up using the old-fashioned telephone book to make sure that I found all the nearby chiropractors.

Things are different today. While there are still a surprising number of small local businesses without websites, they are easily online thanks to Google’s local search results. Did you know that, according to Google, one in every five searches is related to location in some way? It’s no wonder that Google has put a lot of effort into enhancing their local search listings.

This week I learned through Search Engine Land that Google had changed this feature’s name from Google Local Business Center to the simpler Google Places. In addition, they’ve added even more cool things you can do with your GooglePage, once you’ve claimed your listing. For instance, if you’re located in certain cities, you can purchase an enhanced listing, which they now call “tags,” for $25 per month.

And if you operate a hotel, restaurant or local store, you can even apply to have Google photographers come and do a free photo shoot of the interior of your business!

They’ve also added “QR code,” which you can have printed on business cards or anywhere else. The code enables those with QR readers in their phones or other devices to go directly to your website.

More useful to the average business owner, however, is the new ability to post messages to your Place Page. This is great if you have an event coming up or just any special thing you want to tell people about. It can be up to 160 characters and it will show for 30 days unless you delete it sooner. You can post URLs that will become clickable links, but you can’t use HTML code (I tried!). For our Place Page, I added the date to our upcoming
SEO Class with a link to the class page. I think it’s a nice touch.

If you claimed your company’s local listing a long time ago and haven’t checked it out in a while, you should definitely log on and revisit your page. And if you’ve never claimed your Place Page, there’s no better time than the present!

Here’s how to find your Place Page in Google: Head over to Google Maps and search for your company by name. When you find it, click the “more info” link. That should take you straight to your Place Page. If you haven’t claimed your Place Page yet, click the link that says “Business Owner” and then click the “Edit my business information” button on the next page. Now you can fill in all the information on the form.

You might be concerned at this point that someone else could go in and change your information or edit it incorrectly… but don’t worry. Once you’ve filled out the form, nothing will go live until you verify that you are the true owner of the Place Page. They do this by sending you a postcard via snail mail that has a verification code on it that you have to go back later to enter.

Be sure to do a thorough job filling out the description field for your website. This is where you want to add your main keyword phrases where they make sense to do so. Don’t try to add keywords to your company name, however. The spammers and scammers have already killed that little trick and it will only get you in trouble with Google rather than helping.

You can and should add the maximum 5 categories to your listing because what you choose there can help your site show up when people are searching using similar words. Note that you don’t have to stick with the categories Google recommends; you can make up your own. I suggest doing some Google Maps searches using the types of phrases you’d want to show up for, and seeing what some of the sites that are currently showing up are doing.

I also highly recommend that you add photos and videos to your Place Page if you have them. Be sure that one of the pictures is your company logo! You can take a look at what we’ve done with our ‘High Rankings Place Page‘ if you’d like some ideas.

One place we’re lacking at our site is reviews. We’ve been meaning to solicit some from clients, class attendees, forum users and newsletter subscribers, but haven’t gotten around to it. Come to think of it, while I have your attention and while you’re visiting our Place Page anyway, please feel free to write a review! Under “Photos & Video,” you’ll see a section for reviews and a link to write one of your own.

Even if your company is national in scope and doesn’t do much local business, I strongly suggest claiming and enhancing your Google Place Page. These local listings are showing in more and varied ways in the Google search results, well beyond just Google Maps. I expect them to gain even more prominence, given all the effort Google has been putting into them lately.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Google Places (Formerly Local Business Center)

Posted: 20 Apr 2010 10:00 PM PDT

LinkedIn is a professional, business networking tool that is too easily lumped into the social networking service. Even though many of the same modes of operation are employed, the focus is on professionals, professional dialog, professional opportunities, and companies.

This list of LinkedIn best practices was compiled from my work with clients, colleagues and friends who are trying to maximize their professional opportunities. I hope it is also helpful for you.

Get LinkedIn
If you are working, you need to be LinkedIn. If you are not working, you really need to be LinkedIn (however, it would have been better to be LinkedIn when you had a job). If you are a college student, you need to be LinkedIn. The president of the United States is LinkedIn… just do it.

Add Your Picture
A photograph not only personalizes your profile, it completes it. Even though LinkedIn may no longer use a faceless silhouette like other social sites, as shown here, you must keep in mind that this profile is about you, put a face on it.

Finish Your Profile
If you are currently using LinkedIn, or at a minimum signed up for it, finish your profile. Your profile should display 100% Complete. If not, LinkedIn makes it easy with a profile wizard. Typically, you can click on anything green and the wizard recommends ways to increase your profile completeness. It will suggest things to do like; write a recommendation, request a recommendation, add more people, add another job, add educational info, etc. The wizard helps get you to a point of basic critical mass; displaying your completed profile (education & job information) and about 20 connections.

Personalize Your LinkedIin URL

Which looks better to you?

Linkedin.com/pub/coco-design/

- or -

Linkedin.com/in/CocoDesign

Of course the second one is more marketable, more professional, and easier to remember. More importantly, you need to get your personalized LinkedIn URL before someone else, with a similar name, gets it first.

Now that you have a personalized URL, add it to your business email signature so that everyone who gets an email from you -

1. knows you are using LinkedIn,
2. can request to connect to you, and
3. learns about your capabilities when they review your profile.

Answer Questions
This is a great way to build credibility and expertise points. When you answer a question on LinkedIn, the person who asked the question can mark the best answer. The more “best answers” you
have, the more expertise credit you receive in your profile. This is also a great way to connect with people of similar interests or issues.

Asking questions is a good way to receive help from other industry experts and colleagues. It is also good for informal polling. Just do not make it a sales promotion. You will chase people away.

Ask Others if They Use LinkedIn
When you meet someone that you would like to maintain a professional connection with, ask them if they are using LinkedIn and if the would mind if you sent a connection request. This is generally a good question after trading business cards.

Grow Your Connections
Once you have your account to 100% with 20+ connections, you will have created a little momentum. To help keep that going, review your connections’ connections. Chances are you will know a few of those people. Then each time someone connects with you take a quick look at their connections… you may find one or two that you have a relationship with as well. Send a link request.

Important – Do NOT send invites to people you do not truly have a relationship with. If you receive too many “I don’t know this person” clicks on your request, you will be required to know everyone’s email address to request a connection in the future. Bad juju.

Give and Get Recommendations
LinkedIn is like a living, online professional resume/vita. What makes LinkedIn better than a resume that says, “References available upon request”, is that references are displayed for all to see. These recommendations are written in the words of the sender, you cannot edit them. If there is a problem with a recommendation, you can easily request a revision or choose not to display it. Note: you can only request a recommendation from someone who is currently using LinkedIn.

Outbound Links
Your profile allows you to have three outbound links with labels like “My Company”, “My Website”, “My Blog”, etc. I recommend you change the label to “Other” for all three since you can add personalized keywords to the label enhancing the SEO for the target sites. For example, I could link to this article with the label text “LinkedIn Best Practices Article” to help with my search engine rankings for that keyword phrase. You can also use the “Other” label for Facebook & Twitter links.

Join Groups
By joining Industry and interest-related groups you are connected with a larger group of professionals within that sector. This makes it easier for you to invite others in the same group to connect without the need for knowing their email address. Again, you need to be careful here. Unsolicited invitations could get you hit with a few “I don’t know this person” clicks.

Jobs Area
The jobs area is not only for people looking for work. It is also an excellent place for businesses to list job opportunities. Our small company does not use Monster, Career Builder, Ladders, etc.; it would simply be too overwhelming. When we are looking for someone, we only use LinkedIn Jobs. Not only can I review the person’s professional profile and associations, we can get an idea of how closely we are
connected. Job postings can be sent directly to people in your list of contacts and they usually have good recommendations for potential candidates.

LinkedIn Company
If you are a business owner add your company to the Company’s area. If your company is already listed, make sure the information is accurate and up to date.

Install the Toolbars
LinkedIn has both a browser toolbar and an Outlook toolbar. The former works well with Gmail, with both IE & Firefox and, of course, the latter works with Microsoft Outlook. The toolbars add a LinkedIn icon next to a person’s email addresses in your mailbox. This enables you to see their profile information and makes it easier to send an invitation to connect.

Givers Gain
Bottom line, the more you give the more you get back. The more information you share about yourself, the better the search feature will return you or your company as a result. The more recommendations you give, the more likely someone is to give you one. The more questions you ask or answer the more likely you are to connect with people of similar interests that you may never have had the opportunity to meet.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

LinkedIn – Best Practices For You and Your Business

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:44 AM PDT

Promoting an online business can be easy if you know the tools and techniques to use. One effective way used by internet marketers is blogging. How can you make your online marketing through blogs more effective? Below are ten blogging mistakes you should know to help you avoid committing them:

1) Not being committed

If blogging is just your past time, then you can get away with blogging whenever you feel like it. But if you’re blogging is part of your online marketing technique, commitment is important. See to it that you give time to blogging on a regular basis.

2) Not getting any help

If you’re maintaining a blog for marketing online, consider getting some assistance. Trying to update and optimize your blog alone can a difficult job especially if you have other tasks to attend to. Have another person, or better yet, a team to help you attend to your blogging tasks.

3) Not targeting an audience

Niche blogging is surely the way to go. If your blog is not targeted to a particular niche or audience, it would be too difficult to get the traffic you want.

4) The lack of passion

In reality, if your main purpose for blogging is just to sell your ads, then this won’t take you very far. People will instantly see right through you if your blogs are all about commercials. An Adsense ads on your blog without quality content cannot give you a more positive result.

5) Not being original

Some bloggers rely solely on news feeds from other sources. However, if people can read the same content in your blog that they can find from other places, they will not be convinced to subscribe to your blog. They may not even bother to re-visit you.

6) Not analyzing your website traffic statistics

Your web stats can tell you a lot of information. It can tell you which page of your site most readers like, it can tell you which days you receive more visits, where you hits are coming from, what type of readers go to your site and other important details.

7) Not making the needed changes

Don’t be contented with just the same layout, the same content, and the same structure on your blog. If something’s not working, then have the initiative to make some changes. The adage “there’s always room for improvement” also applies to blogging.

Not editing your posts

If you don’t have time to do the editing or you don’t have the editing skills, it is best to hire an editor to do it for you. The role of an editor is to make sure that your posts are free from grammatical errors, typos and punctuation mistakes. It will make your blog more credible and professional.

9) Not using RSS feeds

RSS feeds allow people to get updates from your blog. There are many free feeds on the web that you can use. Make sure that your blog has RSS feeds buttons that your readers can simply click on.

10) Not using keywords on your title tags

Without keywords on your titles, it would be more difficult for search engines to find you. On the other hand, keywords on your title tags allow search engine spiders to crawl on your page and categorize your content easily.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Most Common Blogging Mistakes You Need to Avoid

Posted: 11 May 2010 10:39 PM PDT

Are you thinking about launching your business blog? You’re not alone. A recent study by GuideWireGroup revealed that approximately 89 percent of businesses polled use blogs as a way to communicate with their customers. In another survey, Burson-Marsteller found that 15% of Fortune 500 companies have blogs. A successful business blog can generate tens of thousands of dollars in revenue each year, with figures for large corporations typically much higher.

So, business blogging is becoming a mainstream marketing tool. That does not mean, however, that blogging comes easily or naturally for many companies, their owners and employees. Blogging, like any form of content, is a commitment of time and resources – namely, you have to know how to write (or have access to good writers) and you have to maintain your blogs with fresh, original and insightful new material on a regular basis.This should not scare you away. It should, though, inspire you to learn the basics of business blogging before you turn your baby loose on the world. Planning out your bogging strategy first is a wise move, because it gives your blog a greater chance of success. Here are 10 tips for launching your business blog:

1. Identify your readers.

Before you start writing anything, make sure you understand who your target market is. This is also known as your “buyer persona”, which marketing guru David Meerman Scott defines as “…a distinct group potential customers, an archetypal person whom you want your marketing to reach.”  Basically, you want to tailor your topics to the groups of people who are most interested in your company. Otherwise, you’re missing the mark and losing out on potential leads and sales. To identify these buyer personas, there are 3 questions you should ask yourself–

• § Where do your customers come from?
• § What type of content will be useful to them?
• § Where do your customers hang out online?

2. Create social media accounts.

If you haven’t already done this, register accounts with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Start with these and expand later. This is important because you need places to post links to each new blog, so that your groups, fans, and followers can read them. Posting on social media also encourages people to subscribe to your RSS feed, another great way to promote your blog.

3. Establish your social media presence.

Lay the groundwork for later blog promotion by establishing relationships with your target markets. One of the best ways to do this is through social media. Now that you have accounts started, you can go in and join forums, listen to conversations and hear what people are saying about your industry. Add thoughtful and insightful comments whenever possible. Hire employees to do this if you don’t have time, but try to contribute every once in a while if you can.

4. Determine where to place your blog.

You can either put your blog on a page within your website or give it its own domain. Your choice depends largely on your goals. Do you want the blog to be part of your site, and linked to it directly? Or do you have plans to use your blog for other purposes, such as to make money through ads or creating a secondary business from it?

A blog can help your website to rank higher, and it can also rank highly on its own. So, think about your long-term objectives when deciding where to place it.

5. Use the right keywords.

If you’re placing your business blog on a page within your site, most likely you’ll be using the same keywords for your blog that you are using for your site. If you’ve done good keyword research, then these are the keywords that reflect your business and are the search terms that people are using to find you. If your blog is separate, consider if any keyword changes need to be made. You may want to take your blog site in a different direction from your site. Again, this depends on your goals for your blog.

Incidentally, if your blog does have its own domain, you’ll want the domain name to be brandable, easy for consumers to recognize and search engine-friendly.

6. Choose a blogging platform.

You have options here. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, but you can also check out Joomla, Blogger, TypePad and others.

7. Plan your posts.

Think about the direction you want your blog posts to go in. A good way to stay on track is to start with one main topic and draft a few blogs in advance. Post them on a regular schedule and you’ll have a supply of targeted blogs that add fresh content to your site and point back to your company each week. Coming up with topics can be a challenge, but there are a lot of helpful resources on the Web if you get stuck.

8. Network with influencers.

Once you’ve got your blog started, it’s a good idea to look around at other bloggers in your industry. See what they’re doing, what they have to say, and leave insightful comments on their blogs. This kind of web networking will help you establish relationships with these people, which in turn will prompt them to help spread the word about your blog and your company. This kind of free advertising is invaluable. It connects you to credible and respected individuals within the blogosphere and markets your business for you.

9. Promote your blog.

As mentioned earlier, offering a blog subscription through an RSS feed is an effective way to promote your blog. There are other ways to get the word out, as well. Write an optimized press release, submit articles to directories that link to your blog page, submit your blogs to social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon and Digg (or set up an account with Ping.fm and have it done automatically). Make sure that you link to your blogs in your social media posts.10. Measure results.

If you’re going to take the time to blog for marketing purposes, you’ll want to know how well you’re doing, right? Since it relies primarily on the building of human relationships over time, blog ROI can be tricky to measure. But, you do have many tools at your disposal to help you determine how much or how little your blog is contributing to the bottom line.Free online tools like Google Analytics and Google Alerts provide you with information about how your customers are finding you online, and can tell you a lot about your blog page, in particular. ‘Facebook Insights’ (http://www.facebook.com/help/?search=insights) is a way to track activity on your Facebook account. Other tools are available, so look into them.

Launching your business blog is, like any project, all about preparation. If you do your homework and lay a solid foundation, your blog will produce results. Keep in mind that blogging is a form of content marketing and, as such, is primarily about building relationships with customers. So, be patient, follow these tips, and watch your business grow!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

10 Tips for Launching your Business Blog