Tag Archives: industry

Who Doesn’t Need SEO

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Aaron Wall of SEOBook was recently interviewed on Small Business Trends Radio about SEO. During the interview, Aaron was asked which companies should and shouldn’t invest in SEO. His answer, and the question itself, brought up some legitimate questions that I hadn’t yet seen addressed in the SEO space. Does every company really need SEO? Does every website out there have a legitimate need to link build and optimize on page? Unfortunately for us SEO professionals, the short answer is no – the long answer is this post. Completely Forget About

Local Business Listing Marketing vs. Data Services

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As local business marketing as become a hot topic in the Internet marketing industry, business owners are finding themselves confused about the various types of services that can help them tap into this local marketing tool.  Of course additional confusions arise from the variations of service fees too. Let’s take a look at defining these services, the fees and local listings as a marketing tool.  This will also shed some light on why there are monthly management fees by the marketing services. Local Listing Data Services We have discussed this service in a previous article about companies that provide “get listed” services.  What this service provides is to push your business information as data into local listing websites.  The entire process is automated through programs known as API’s.  There are limitations as to what information can be submitted.  They certainly do not allow you to protect your brand by claiming your listing through this process.  The claiming process is most important as it allows you to manage your local business listing not only with marketing information, but also consumer reviews.  Our argument with this service is that most businesses are already listed and why do you need to get “get listed”?  Fees for this service are less than $100 per year Local Listing Marketing Services This type of service is the service that will allow you to use your local business listing as a local marketing tool to reach the local consumers through web searches and mobile searches most effectively.  Because this service is a combination of automation and manual labor the fees are higher and range with one time setups to ongoing monthly management fees.  Here are some of the services that are included with local business listing marketing services. One question you should ask yourself. Do you have the time resources to manage this marketing tool at multiple local listing websites?  This will certainly help answer if you need help with this process. 1. It is important to claim your listing at multiple local listing websites.  If the marketing service is only with Google, then you are missing out at a variety of other sources ling Bing, Ask, City Search, Local.com, Yelp, Yahoo, Merchant Circle and many others.  Consumers and mobile application developers will decide which website they will use for local business listing reviews and data.  Google is not the powerhouse in this case. 2. Claim your listing to protect your brand from being hijacked .  Claiming is a crucial and important first step with local business listings.  If you do not claim the listing at multiple local listing websites you are open to hijackings and having your information re-directed to another business or criminals pursuing the local consumers.  This is the part that tends to cause much of the frustrations you read about from business owners on the web. 3. Update your listing with your business marketing information to include not only text copy for web searches and mobile searches, but categories, photos, coupons, videos, images, etc.  Because this information changes throughout the year (particularly your coupons, offers, discounts and events) the monthly management service will help insure everything is update to date at multiple locations. 4. Clean-up mis-matched data .  Because local listing websites get their data from multiple sources, businesses are finding that there are multiple listings for a single address of their business.  Deleting or merging these listings is an important process to insure the duplicates are not hijacked or consumers posting reviews in a listing that is not monitored. 5. Monitor your consumer reviews .  Your customers have already been posting their reviews about you at multiple local listing websites. Monitoring and subsequently managing these reviews at multiple local listing websites for local public relations is an important process and one that will be new to most local businesses.  This is also included with most local listing marketing services within their monthly management fee. 6. Citations are in important step in this process to have your listing ranked higher on web searches amongst the listings next to the map.  This is not always included in the lower priced marketing services and an addition to be considered as this industry and marketing tool evolves and matures in the upcoming years. Future technologies will make local business listings more effective as a local business marketing tool.  QR Codes, mobile applications, mobile coupons and other technologies will have to be managed for the local business to insure they are being used to be most effective. Hopefully the above information has helped you at least categorize the different local business listing services between data services and marketing services.  The benefits of the marketing services far outweigh the data services and are the most effective to reaching the local consumer. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Local Business Listing Marketing vs. Data

Blogging for Bucks: 8 Tips to Earn Pay for Your Say

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Unless you’ve been living up under a rock lately, you’ve heard of the Internet phenomenon known as blogging. What many people don’t know is that blogging is no longer just a recreational pursuit for folks to vent their repressed feelings, showcase their creative work, or promote a personal agenda. It’s been elevated to an art form and an avenue where authors establish their expertise, expand their platforms, and savvy writers get pay for their say. Since I started, I’ve had the pleasure of being paid to produce blog posts on everything from jazz reviews, to personal opinions, to how-tos. And you can too. But there’s a method to it. Even though it’s not a “perfect science” it does require a systematic approach. Here’s how to work it: Do your homework. Study other blogs—the popular ones and the new kids on the block. What makes them successful? Where do they miss the mark? What’s the tone? The word count? The take-away value? Write right and write tight. Blogs categorically require a different type of writing than other genres of writing. Most are more informal and conversational in tone. Very few call for word counts of over 700 words per post. To hone your skills and establish your expertise, do a few guest posts on other blogs. Ideally the ones that boast a high fan base and are considered leaders in the blog field. Doing so gives you credibility, visibility, and success by association. Network- –Just like in the corporate arena, sometimes it’s not what you know but who you know that can make the difference. Tap into your available resources and folks who are in-the-know through Facebook, Twitter, and online communities in which you interact. Follow directions to find the road to success. For example, if a blog ad for a paying gig calls for 2 samples of 500 words and a resume, don’t send one sample of 1000 words and links to work you’ve created on line. It’s the easiest way to get fired before you’re hired! Make it brief- –When applying for work, or presenting your work for consideration, be brief but substantive. Recognize that less is sometimes more. Have goals and a game plan. How much would you like to earn monthly? Yearly? Which blogs are the ones you aspire to write for and how often? What will your niche be? Is there anyone who can serve as a mentor to advise and guide you? These are a few key questions to consider. Write what you know- –The traditional philosophy of writing also applies with blogging. Pen posts on topics with which you have experience and familiarity. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should never venture into new territories or attempt to expand your knowledge base. You should. But make that one of your future goals once you establish some footing and a fan base. Here are a few places that you can find work in the blogging field: www.Bloggingpro.com – One of the industry leaders, Bloggingpro has recently introduced a blogging job board to its many services and features offered to its readers. www.craigslist.org – usually found mixed in with regular writing gigs. www.bloggerjobs.biz Offers part-time and full time work at various rates. www.freelancewritinggigs.com A reputable source with an array of offerings from different industries. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Blogging for Bucks: 8 Tips to Earn Pay for Your

And the winners for the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit are…

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We are all excited that the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit is less than a month away! With 52 tickets left, we are quickly approaching our capacity limit. With topics such as Doing Business on Twitter & Facebook and Outsourcing Secrets: Cut Costs & Spend More Time on the Beach, you really don’t want to miss it. We have 5 free tickets (valued at $525) to give away. One has been given to our Twitter contest winner, Ben Cook. Now, I am proud to announce our YouTube, Your Story and SEOtini contest winners. Drum roll please…   1)      The YouTube contest winner goes to Ethan Stanislawski! Ethan posted a video response on YouTube about his first day on the job doing SEO. He tells of how the Paris Hilton DUI incident, CNN and the Daily Show made him realize that SEO is about marketing.     2)      The Your Story contest winner is Joshua Titsworth! Joshua told his story about how he got into internet marketing. He went from working at a non-profit organization to being called “The Repair Man” to being hired by another company for his experience (where he gained from self-taught SEO). In 2007 I started working for a non-profit in downtown Kansas City, KS. I was hired with the directive to help raise funds, write press releases, and update the website. The more I got involved with the website the more I liked it and the more time I started to give it. After the website was looking better than it did before (I was stuck using Frontpage ‘98), a board member complained to me I was spending too much time with it. If they can’t find us what good are you? So I started looking for cheap ways to market NPOs online.   I came across seomoz and few other sites. I was a little shocked at first, not at the material, but at how quickly I was able to read and understand it. In the past it has taken me hours of reading and homework to comprehend what was in front of me. With the information about SEO I could read it, process it, and use it right away. Pretty soon the website was doing well, patients were finding us easily, their mission teams were getting filled and all from the web. After that a board member (a different one from before) asked me to look at his site. I applied the same measures as I took to ours, and the same results took place a few months later. But with all non profits, what is written in the contract is not always what you will do. I was ordered to take a break from the web to focus on facility repair. Pretty soon I was known as the repair man, which I didn’t mind, but I really wanted to do more internet marketing. I ended up leaving that non-profit to get more involved in SEO so I could get a job one day. I applied for everything I could. I had two years of limited experience, but I never got a call back until I applied at Chemidex. They called me, and I made it down to the final interview. My boss told me on my first day the deciding factor was so much experience, as it was they wanted someone with a heart for SEO and someone young enough in his/her career that they could get their start with Chemidex. I’ll admit, I’m still pretty new in this field. But I love it, and I can’t imagine not working in this industry.   3)      The winner of the SEOtini contest is Vivian Hoang! Vivian has given us an award-winning recipe for our signature drink, The SEOtini. Everyone who attend the Search & Social Spring Summit will get a complimentary round of this drink. 2 parts Grey Goose vodka 1 oz Blue Caracao 1 oz Cointreau 1 oz Champagne Mix the vodka and liqueurs in a mixing glass. Add ice, stir to chill, and then strain into a martini glass. Top with champagne, stir gently, and garnish with a lemon peel.   Congratulations to Ethan, Joshua and Vivian for each winning a ticket to the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit. We have one last contest (THE GRAND PRIZE) to be announced on April 15 th , 2010. That’s exactly ONE WEEK from today! You can still enter here .   For questions or more info about the conference, you can reach Thao Tran at thao@searchandsocial.com or (813) 932-4SEO.   Please check out this video on the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit: Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . And the winners for the 2010 Search & Social Spring Summit

iPhone and Android Phones’ Traffic Rise

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Mobile Metrics firm Admob’s February report is showing some interesting trend in the mobile market today. Specifically, Admob’s report indicates that smartphone’s worldwide traffic is rising with February’s market share growing to 48% in February 2010 as compared to 35% in the same month last year. In addition and perhaps more interestingly, worldwide traffic of  the iPhone OS and Android phones is quite significant not to take notice of. iPhone’s share of request in February 2010 increased to 50%  from 33%  last year. Quite significantly, the Android’s share of traffic all of a sudden jumped to as much as 24% from its mere 2% share in February 2009.  The bad news fell on Symbian OS as its worldwide traffic decrease from 43% to 18%. For feature phones, or those regular phones that don’t fall under the smartphone category, the trend was also decreasing – from 58% to 35%. While this may show that both the iPhone OS and Android devices are gaining grounds and may seem the new black in the smartphone industry, this does not however reflect market shares of these smartphones. Hence, it’s no indication of  the smartphone’s market success. Still, the fact remains that both these smartphones are showing positive signs of eventually capturing the smartphone market. And if Symbian wants to retain its previous clout in the industry, it must introduced some drastic changes to what it can offer to users. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . iPhone and Android Phones’ Traffic