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Like James Morris once said, “ There is no secret sauce in SEO “. Really, if you can allow the time for some studying, you are most likely to be able to do it yourself. What you really need is (1) to understand the good old KISS principle (just keep it as simple as possible), (2) take any rumors and myths (even if they come from trustful sources) with a grain of salt and (3) bookmark some easy-to-implement, step-by-step tutorials. This post is an effort to give you a clearly defined and easy to comprehend guide on the steps to optimize your business for local search : enjoy! I have taken the following steps to promote my business in local search: I have displayed my full business contact information clearly on my site. I am taking advantage of these placements to make my contact information stand out and easy to find: Title of the page (especially for the contact page); Meta description of the contact page and “About us” page (to be displayed in SERPs) Bottom of each page throughout the site ( bottom of the page is the traditional placement for contact information, so most visitors will first look for it there – I don’t make my visitors search for my contact info; it is right there where they are used to seeing it). My site Contact and About-us pages contain sufficient information on where my business is located as well as phone numbers including local area (search engines are often believed to associate local area code as the local search rankings factor ); thus, I don’t need to add “nofollow” attribute to those pages; I have made sure my business domain WHOIS information lists my business mail address and contact phone number; I have the list of my local competitors and have researched their local promotion tactics (I know where their local backlinks come from). My business is listed in the regional sections of popular directories like BOTW and Business.com . I claimed my business and edited my listing in local search engines like Yahoo! Local , YellowPages and CitySearch . For international businesses: I have compiled the list of most powerful local search engines and claimed my business listings there. Examples of these include: 411 Canada ; Australia’s local search engine ; UK’s local search engine . I have created my business profiles at major business social networks and included its address there (examples: CrunchBase for technology companies; Facebook pages, etc) I have found and built relations with powerful local bloggers and journalists and get featured by them; I have made my site more accessible for mobile phones . I understand how important it is to optimize my site for mobile searches. I have read and thought over these awesome guide on local search optimization: Local Search Ranking Factors (2009 edition!) Local search guide ; Facebook Pages & Local Search Engine Optimization ; Local Search : User Recommendations Make Your Business Money Enhance Your Google Local Listings 3 Keys To Success For Local Search SEO Did I miss anything? Please add in the comments! Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . The Local Search Engine Optimization Cheat
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facebook-pages,
list,
local search,
ranking-factors,
recommendations,
search,
search-engine,
search-engines
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This post is a response to BusinessWeek’s recent “ Beware Social Media Snake Oil ” article. I would like to elaborate on a few concepts and misconceptions the article had. Right off the bat, one thing this article fails to separate is social media for small business and social media for large corporations as defined by different goals and objectives. When discussing social media people tend to lump all facets of social media and all social media channels together. However, social media is an all encompassing word for: Content Aggregation Media Sharing Bookmarking Blogging/Micro-Blogging Networking Forum conversation These facets are what define social media and should be treated differently, for each facet can have its own unique set of analytical measurements and objectives. All are tools to an overall marketing strategy though. Risk The article dives right into proclaiming utilization of social media “tools”, such as Facebook and Twitter, to be risky in many ways. Employees encouraged to tap social networking sites can fritter away hours, or worse. They can spill company secrets or harm corporate relationships by denigrating partners. What’s more, with one misstep, one clumsy entrée, companies can quickly find themselves victims of the forces they were trying to master. The article also uses a quote from James Cooper, Saatchi’s digital creative director, stating: Social media [campaigns], by their nature, are unpredictable, which makes them an easy target for critics. “Anyone who says ‘This is going to work’ is either lying or deranged,” he says. He compares the risk model with venture capital, where one bet out of 10 might pay off richly, while the others struggle or even bomb. Rebuttal First and foremost, companies should learn to dedicate resources towards social media. Not just have one of their SEOs or tech guys handle it as part of their already over-piled list of duties. Employees won’t waste time on social media if there’s a system of checks and balances. Rules can be set in to place to dedicate X amount of time each day conducting a diverse array of social media related tasks. If there is a well-defined social media policies and guidelines then there should be little worry over an employee “spilling company secrets” or “harming partner relationships”. Let’s not focus on the medium here let’s focus on the message . If an employee leaks company secrets the secrets will find a way to travel to the masses regardless of which channel the secret was released. Loose lips sink ships. Companies just need to define clearly what employees should and should not discuss both online and offline. What is worse is not monitoring the sentiment about your company and doing nothing. The conversation will happen whether you are there or not to try to control it. To address James Cooper’s point, no marketer knows how a campaign is going to turn out. Isn’t that the beauty of marketing? That it’s a game of successes and failures? One must look at the overall results of several campaign initiatives to judge the overall outcome and ROI. Judging campaigns on a one-off basis is fine to measure results and refine direction but most campaigns are a single node in an overall strategy. Success Metrics and
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Business,
column,
facebook,
media,
metrics,
phone,
search,
seo,
sharing,
Social Media
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Following Yahoo’s recent announcement on the integration of Facebook to its content network, it’s now Google’s turn to do the same. Not with Facebook obviously, but with perhaps a better ally – Twitter. Starting today, you can now connect your Twitter ID with sites that use Google Friend Connect. You don’t have to do anything if you’re already a Google Friend Connect user. The integration just works automatically the next time you login to GFC using your Twitter ID. And what can you do with this integration? Many things actually. For one, you can now tweet anything from the Google Friend Connect site that you are currently logged-in to. GFC and Twitter’s integration will certainly give these two online properties a big boost in terms of usage and userbase expansion. GFC currently boasts of around 9 million sites, while Twitter boasts of well, how many users does Twitter got now anyway? If you’re not yet into Google Friend Connect, now may be the right to start using it. Learn more about Google Friend Connect from this site . Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Friend Connect Joins Forces with
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connect,
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facebook,
from-the-google,
google-friend,
integration,
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search engine news,
seo,
shot-2009-12-03,
tools,
twitter
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This could be Bing’s last hurrah for the year, as Microsoft launches Bing Maps in beta while at the same time announces a new Bing mobile app, a new toolbar and a visual search experience in the coming days. While all these new features seem pretty exciting, Bing Maps beta which runs on Microsoft’s Silverlight looks to be the most promising. Feature-rich Bing
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Business,
facebook,
microsoft,
mobile,
search engine news,
search-engine,
seo,
silverlight,
toolbar,
visual-search
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Yahoo is about to do what others have been wanting to do for so long now – integrate Facebook in their online service. Just announced is Yahoo’s soon to be implementation of Facebook Connect. This practically means that once implemented you can now share Yahoo’s various content including ratings, photos, article comment and more to your Facebook streams or updates. Likewise, you can now seamlessly see your Facebook friends’ activities on your Yahoo account. The integration would also mean that you will now have an option on where to update your status message – that is either on any of the supported Yahoo properties or on Facebook instead. Although Yahoo has somewhat integrated Facebook before, it was only on the individual Yahoo account portal. This time, it will be a full integration across all Yahoo sites. Obviously, Yahoo is the one taking advantage of Facebook’s popularity and massive userbase in this deal. Since Bing is already ahead of them with its Twitter integration, it is but logical for Yahoo to turn to Twitter’s closest rival – Facebook in the hopes of increasing user engagement on Yahoo’s content sites. Yahoo is set to roll out Facebook Connect in the early part of 2010. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Yahoo to Connect with Facebook in
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facebook,
increasing-user,
individual,
online,
practically,
search engine news,
search-engine,
social-networking,
supported,
time,
various-content
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Although a little earlier than usually done by other search engines, Bing has released its top trending topics for 2009 . ”Michael Jackson” was the number most search keywords although the most search personality was “Perez Hilton.” The list was created based on the analysis of billions of searches against those that were searched using Bing. Aside from MJ, here are the other keywords that made it to the Top Trending Topics in Bing in 2009: 1) Michael Jackson 2) Twitter 3) Swine Flu 4) Stock Market 5) Farrah Fawcett 6) Patrick Swayze 7) Cash for Clunkers 
Jon and Kate Gosselin 9) Billy Mays 10) Jaycee Dugard Bing also got a lot of searches for top online sites such as Facebook, MSN, YouTube and Craiglist. It could mean that there are more new users who want to find out what’s the fuzz is all about Facebook and these other sites. For complex seaches, Bing got a lot of them as well, particularly those queries seeking help for specific matters such as deciding what MP3 to buy as well as travel-related searches. Bing is also releasing it’s “Most Popular Searches in 2009″. This is different from the Top Trending Topics as this list pertains to celebrities. Like I said, Perez Hilton tops this list followed by Robert “Edward Cullen” Pattinson and Maegan Fox. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Michael Jackson Tops Bing Searches in
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edward-cullen,
facebook,
farrah-fawcett,
jackson,
list,
michael-jackson,
msn,
patrick-swayze,
perez-hilton,
search,
search-engine,
seo,
trending-topics,
well-as-travel
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Nowadays it is a norm to run more than one blogs as well as Tweet to more than one Twitter accounts. By doing this we are able to separate personal life from our business and professional updates, as we manage various projects on absolutely different topics. For example, would my SEJ readers be interested in what I am doing tonight? My close friends would probably be but my SEO contacts – I personally doubt they will. So why would I bother them with that information. Therefore if you look at my @seosmarty account, you will seldom see any personal updates because I don’t like to trash my followers’ dashboards. If I need to say something personal, I will do that using my other personal account. So I am sure many people would be willing to know how to Tweet to multiple accounts: Hootsuite A web-based tool that makes it easy to update to multiple Twitter accounts: Register at the site; Set up your Twitter accounts: Confirm your account by clicking the verification link in the email message; Start Tweeting: At the dashboard you will be able to see your whole Twitter stream (each profile in a separate tab): Home feed; Mentions / replies; Direct messages; Pending Tweets. To send a tweet, you can either update it from the website, or use a bookmarklet : When on a page you want to Tweet, click the bookmarklet; A pop-up will appear with retrieved page title and shortened URL; Select the profiles to send a Tweet to; Or click Send Later to set a future time to send your tweet. Additional features: Account Stats : View all the activity of each of your Twitter accounts during the set period of time.; Personalized Layout : Customize the layout just the way you want it with tabs and columns. Create Groups : Create customizable columns for your friends, groups or interests. Quick Search : Search terms to find out what people are saying about them right now. Auto Refresh : Keep on top of new tweets with the auto refresh and optional notification. Tweet3 Tweet3 is another Twitter web-based app that has a couple of nifty features. The process is quick and smooth: Start by creating your profile – immediately after that you will be offered to add your Twitter account, watch your brand mentions and integrate with Facebook: After you are done setting up your Twitter accounts, go to your Tweet3 dashboard which looks pretty neat: Switch between twitter accounts; Add / remove panels from the dashboard (you can add search panels for example); Send an update to any of your accounts: Additional features: Watch your brand mentions; Use analytics tool that analyzes your Followers vs. Following statistics. Seesmic
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Business,
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