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How to Create a Free Google Places Listing for Your Business

Doug Williams @ 6:14 am

This blog entry was posted on May 13, 2011.

These are the 7 Google Map listings that appear when doing a search for local businesses. According to Google, 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Listings are free for any business that has an actual physical location that they publish. Only businesses that make in-person contact with customers qualify for a Google Places listing.

Google Places Business Listings are optimized for smartphones. If your current website is not smartphone optimized then this is the perfect free tool for mobile visibility.

Google Places listings will appear in addition to your normal website listings. You can see an example of this in the image below (green boxes). Best of all, your business listing is free. Go to Google Places to get started on your business listing.

How to complete your Places Listing

  1. Business Name: This should be your legal business name. Avoid trying to use extra keywords here.
  2. Business Location: Use your actual physical address. Do not use PO Boxes. Do not create multiple
    listings if you service multiple areas from one location. Instead designate service areas.
  3. Phone: Use a local phone number that connects to your business location. Avoid using toll free numbers.
  4. Website: Provide only one website that best services your location.
  5. Categories: You can select up to 5 categories that best describes what your business is. Start by selecting the best categories from the drop down. You can use your own keyword driven categories, but try them first by doing a Google search followed by your city to make sure a map listing will appear for that keyword.
  6. Description: Use the description fields to include additional information about your listing. It is OK to use keywords here. You can do the same with the custom attribute field.

Make your Places listing as complete as possible. Answer all Questions on the entry form. These include hours of operation and methods of payment. Upload images (up to 10) and videos (up to 5).

For more, see Google’s quality guidelines.

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Filed under: Local Search



How to Apply Local SEO to Your Local Business Website

Doug Williams @ 5:24 am

This blog entry was posted on March 21, 2011.

Local businesses like a florist, a restaurant, a lawyer, or a plumber all need a website. Your customers expect it. Not only do you need a website, you need it to come up in the search results. Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website so it will come up when your customers search on Google.

  1. Local Keywords: This is how people will find your website when they search on Google. Use a keyword research tool such as Market Samurai. Choose local phrases which are broad terms + city or other geographic descriptor.
  2. Title Tags: Use your most important phrase at the beginning of the Title tag followed by your city and state. Place your business name at the end of the tag. Keep Title tags shorter than 100 characters with 70 being optimal.
  3. Meta Description: These are less about local SEO and more for attracting visitors. Description tags are used as the description in Google search results so make them compelling. Use unique page descriptions for each page that accurately describes the page. Include your phone number to encourage phone calls.
  4. H1 Heading Tags: H1 Tags are the main web page headline. They should contain your most important keyword phrase and grab an arriving visitor’s interest. For local SEO always include the city or state as part of the H1 tag. Each page should have only one H1 tag.
  5. Content: Each page of your website should have 250 or more words of text. Search engines detect text and not images. Each page should include your most important keywords as well as the cities that you serve.
  6. Address: Include your address and phone number on every page so the search engines know your local area. Include the cities that you serve. If you have multiple locations, create a separate page for each location.
  7. Google Places: Listings are free for any business; you will just need a local business address and local phone number. Fill out your listing completely including business hours. You can choose up to 5 business categories. Encourage your customers to review your business.

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Filed under: Local Search



Does Your Small Business Have a Website? If Not, Why Not?

Doug Williams @ 5:37 am

This blog entry was posted on January 16, 2011.

If you have a local business, you need a website. People don’t use the yellow pages anymore. If they want something… they Google it. The biggest Internet trend is toward local. If you want Pizza, if you need a dry cleaner or if you need a plumber, you find it on the Internet.

If you want to tap into the biggest source of ready customers, you need a website first.

You need to consider two things as you plan your website

  1. What to put in your website.
  2. How to get people to come to your new site.

When people come to your site they want to know what services you offer, the hours you are open, where you are located, phone numbers and your story (About-us page). Here are some ideas for different types of businesses.

  1. Restaurants: Include menus with prices, photos of your restaurant, the hours you are open and coupons and specials.
  2. Consultants: Include testimonials and case studies of projects you worked on.
  3. HVAC Companies : Include your service area, seasonal specials for maintenance, you can sell filters online and include a 24/7 emergency phone number.
  4. Contractors: Include a photo gallery of homes or remodeling projects that you built, include a detailed list of the types of construction that you do (bathroom remodel, decks, fences, etc). Include licenses that you hold and testimonials from past clients.
  5. Photographers: Include a portfolio (photo gallery) of photographs, pictures of their studio, how to set an appointment and provide contact details.

To get traffic to your website, make sure you list out your products and services and list your address and communities that you serve. People search for local services most often with the service and the city name. Listing locations on your site encourages your site to come up for local search. Then use a backlinking service to push your website up in the search engine results

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Filed under: Local Search,Website Design



7 Ways to Promote Your Local Business on the Web

Doug Williams @ 2:51 pm

This blog entry was posted on December 27, 2010.

Your customers no longer use the Yellow Pages or Newspapers to find places to buy from. They use the web. If you need pizza for dinner, you will Google it… probably from your phone.

What should a small local business do to promote themselves on the Internet?

  1. Website: Every business today needs a website. Your website needs to answer the questions that your customers are searching for. What are your hours? Where are you located? If you are a restaurant, they will expect to see a copy of your menu. Use your website as your foundation for your Internet Marketing.
  2. Mobile site: Create a small screen version of your website that is easily viewed on a phone. The mobile web is the high growth area for local business web marketing. Use an automatic switcher script so the mobile version of your website is presented when viewed on a mobile phone.
  3. Google Places: Sometimes called the Google Map listing or Google 7-pack listing. Listings are free for any business; you will just need a local business address and local phone number. Fill out your listing completely including business hours. You can choose multiple business categories. You do not need a website in order to have a Google Places listing. More on 7-Pack optimization.
  4. Local Directory Listings: Submit your business to as many directory listings as possible. These should range from online yellow pages to hundreds of other directories. Some will be free and some will be paid. Find ones that are relevant to your market niche.
  5. Local SEO:”Localize” your website by combining broad keyword phrases such as “homes for sale” (if you are a realtor) and local geographic modifiers. These geographic modifiers are city, state, zip code or local land marks. Show cities or neighborhoods you serve, include local phone numbers and include your business address.
  6. Email: Build up your email list by including an email capture on your home page. Offer announcement of sale prices and coupons to people who register. Email marketing should always be opt-in subscribers.
  7. SMS Marketing: Market your business over the mobile web. Use SMS marketing (Short Message Service or texting) to reach interested prospects in your local area. More than 90% of mobile phone owners read all text messages they receive including those sent by businesses.

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Filed under: Blog Marketing,Local Search



Google Maps Optimization Tips

Doug Williams @ 5:33 am

This blog entry was posted on November 29, 2010.

Google map results are triggered when someone includes a city or state name with certain search terms. Although these map listings are free when a business registers with Google Places, only the top 7 listings are displayed on the results page when a search is done. To appear in the top 7 listings, you will still need to optimize your map listing.

  1. Keywords: This is very important as you create your new business listing. Not all keywords will produce a map listing when paired with a city name. You will need to test this as you finalize your keywords. Make sure your keywords are highly relevant to what you sell.
  2. Local: The address and phone number for your business must be local and the same as you use on your other online locations. Place your address on every single page of your website, blog and web directory listing.
  3. Categories: This is the business category that your business falls under. The category should be your keywords you selected above. The first category must be a legitimate Google category but the next 4 can be completely arbitrary and keyword rich.
  4. Develop Citations: These are web pages that “cite” your company, address and phone number. You can develop these citations yourself by creating pages or listings at: squidoo.com, aboutus.org, kudzu.com, google.com/profiles or brownbook.net.
  5. Customers Reviews: The more reviews your listing has, the better your position. It not only provides social proof for your company, reviews will keep your listing near the top. Try sending new customers an email asking them to leave you a review. You can even do this automatically using an auto responder series that greet new clients.
  6. BackLinks: An effective targeted link building campaign can do wonders for your placements. This can move your listing above your competition by using keyword anchor text in a backlinking campaign.

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Filed under: Local Search



An Easy Introduction to Marketing Your Local Business on the Web

Doug Williams @ 5:17 am

This blog entry was posted on May 28, 2010.

You are spending a fortune on yellow page ads for your restaurant and it’s just not working. You hand our flyers for your landscaping business, but no one is calling. You think you want to try the web, but how do you get started?

Many local businesses start by putting up the equivalent to a brochure on a do it yourself type website, but this just doesn’t work. You need strategy and a plan behind your website. Here is what you need to do.

  1. Customer focused: When creating a website for your local business, you have to start by thinking like your customer. A visitor arrives to your website looking for something. It could be your menu with pricing, your phone number, the hours you are open or even driving directions. Whatever they want, you need to make it easy for them to find on your website.
  2. Encourage action: You want your visitors to do something when they arrive. If you want them to call, place your phone number in a large font on the top of your website. If you want them to come in, place your address prominently on every page. If you want them to buy, make it visual and prominent for an arriving visitor to see.
  3. Local search: If you want your website to come up on a Google search for your local area, then clearly state what services you provide and the cities you serve. People search locally combining the city with what they are searching for. This could be a Denver florist, a Chicago plumber or a Portland restaurant. Use these words in your text, in your headlines and hyperlinks.
  4. Directories: You also want to get your free local listings on Google Places, Yahoo! Local or Bing Local. This will bring your listing up even if you don’t have a website.

Sign-up for a FREE 2-1/2 hour webinar designed to teach you how to market your business on the web: Website Marketing Mastery 2010. (Tuesday, June 8, 2010, 7:30AM Pacific Time – 10AM Pacific). This webinar is designed for the small business owner that wants to learn how to market their business on the web.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Local Search



Google Mobile Search for Local Businesses

Doug Williams @ 5:58 am

This blog entry was posted on January 10, 2010.

Do you need to find the location of the nearest ATM to get some cash? Then find the nearest fast food restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat? Just use your mobile phone and do a quick local search on Google.

If you are searching on your iPhone or Android phone, it is now even easier. This week (Jan 7), Google unveiled a feature called “Near me now.” Clicking on that link will return a list of local points of interest, including restaurants, coffee shops, and bars, as well as banks and ATMs. This is the latest way Google is making local search more convenient.

On other phones you need to go to Google and then select “Local” to search for businesses close to you. This makes it fast and easy to locate local businesses close to where your immediate location.

These Google local results are a combination of Google Local Business Center results that are supplemented with phone directory results from both white and yellow page business listings.

The best results occur for businesses that take the time to complete a free directory listing on Google. It is most best is to have your listing claimed, updated, reviewed. Many smaller local businesses are using this directory listing as a substitute for a business website. These free listings give even the smallest businesses to have an online presence at no cost.

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Filed under: Local Search,Mobile Web



My 5 Internet Marketing Predictions for 2010

Doug Williams @ 6:14 am

This blog entry was posted on December 27, 2009.

Businesses will continuing moving away from traditional marketing and toward Internet marketing. Many more traditional brick and mortar companies will begin tapping into web marketing. I have dusted off my crystal ball and am looking ahead to 2010 and how the web will change these small businesses.

  1. More local websites: 53% of Small Businesses will have a website by December 2010. The number of small businesses that have a website has grown from 36% (November 2007) to 45% (August 2009) according to a studies by Discover Business card and Rasmussen Reports. This trend will accelerate as small businesses watch the increasing trend of local search from handheld mobile devices such as Smart Phones. This same report says that 47 percent of consumers say they are more likely to use a business if they have a web site.
  2. Video will continue to grow: The website YouTube has 35% more video searches than the #2 search engine Yahoo has total searches (October 2009). 84.4% percent of online visitors watch web videos with the average viewer  (October 2009). The price of producing a video production continues to decrease. The price of Flip video cameras are under $200 making video cheap and easy to make. The standard video will be about 4 minutes and will be used in social media marketing and to visually demonstrate products in action.
  3. Blog websites to increase: More companies will move their primary website to blog platforms such as WordPress.org. RSS feeds are a powerful SEO tool and the search engine friendly structure makes these blog websites a natural. Blogs lend themselves better to social media marketing. Adding WordPress plugins such as Sociable or reTweet make integration into social media easy.
  4. Relationship Marketing: On the web, size doesn’t matter, relationships matter. How marketing is done is changing at an ever increasing rate. Traditional marketing broadcasts a message. Businesses will move more into social media marketing where they can engage their targeted customer and interact with them. Blog marketing will continue to grow but will become more integrated with other forms of social media.
  5. Polarization in Social Media: The over 40 crowd will settle in on just a few forms of social media to interact and get their information. This older crowd will try and distance themselves from the “noise” and chatter that comes with many forms of social media like Twitter. The younger consumers will increase their use of social media on all fronts. Businesses marketing to younger consumers will have to step up their entry into social media marketing.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Internet Predictions,Local Search,Social Media Marketing



Google 7-Pack Optimization Service $297

Doug Williams @ 5:45 am

This blog entry was posted on December 21, 2009.

When people do an online search, they “Google it”. Perhaps you own a restaurant or a law firm, a hair salon or computer repair company. Perhaps you’re a locksmith, a plumber, a florist or you fix cars. If yours is a local business, then you need to be found in a local search. Google, Yahoo! and Bing all offer local search listings for businesses.

We are offering Google 7-Pack Optimization Service for $297 as a year-end promotion. Our normal price is $497. We are also offering all three major search engines local listings for $597.

  1. Google Local Business (Google 7-Pack)
  2. Yahoo! Local
  3. Bing Local Listings

What this includes

  1. Initial discussion: We start with a brief phone discussion to gather background information on your business. We will need to know things such as your business name, your business address, business phone number(s), business email, your website URL (You do not need a website for a 7-Pack listing) and a description of the goods/services you offer. Other things we like to include in your listing are the hours you are open, customer payment options, your logo, photos and any specials you are offering.
  2. Keyword research: We perform keyword research to discover how people are using local search engines to look for the things you offer. You will be encouraged to use these phrases in your website if you have one.
  3. Create / Modify listing: We will create a new listing or modify (optimize) your current listing.
  4. Claim: We will help you claim your business local search listing. This verifies to Google that you are the appropriate person to modify the listing for that particular business location.
  5. Reviews: You will want to encourage your customers to review your business. Business listings that have reviews will rank higher that companies that have no reviews. Search engines are increasingly pulling in data from social media sites like Yelp.

This local map optimization works for companies by making their business more visible to web surfers on Google, Yahoo! and Bing local maps.

This process takes two business days once we receive your information. Check out our listing. Please contact us using our quote form or by calling our office at (360) 695-8100.

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Filed under: Local Search



SEO vs. SEM, What is the Difference?

Doug Williams @ 5:56 am

This blog entry was posted on December 13, 2009.

Many people are confused because these two phrases are often used interchangeably. There is actually a big difference. SEM or Search Engine Marketing is the broader term; it includes all strategies for promoting your website on the search engines. SEO or search engine optimization is a method of getting a website ranked in the natural or organic search results.

3 Types of Search Engine Marketing

  1. Organic SEO: This is a process for improving your website’s rankings. Optimizing is part science and part art. It prepares a web page to be found for certain key search phrases. Organic SEO uses keyword phrases prominently on the web page itself (headings, body text, hyperlinks, etc.). This is usually coupled with a link popularity strategy.
  2. Local Search: This uses organic SEO methods mixed with city, state and zip codes. These “geo modifiers” bring in searchers looking for local businesses. This also includes Google 7-pack listings and other local directories.
  3. Pay per Click: This is advertising on Google and other search engines. These ads come up based on the keyword query and appears under the sponsored results. You only pay for visitors that click through to your website. This includes Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Bing (Microsoft adCenter).

There are other types of Internet marketing (an even broader term then SEM) that can be used to promote your businesses with the search engines.

Social Media Marketing: This includes blog marketing, social networking, Twitter and more. You can set up profiles on popular social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace , etc. You can publish your own blog or participate in online forums as an expert.

Article Marketing: Write and publish educational articles and place them on article syndication sites. Other web site owners can publish them on their web sites. Links in the bottom resource box will lead interested people to your website.

Best results are achieved when multiple SEM methods are used. Traffic strategies need to be devised when a website is being planned. SEO works best when it is planned into the website structure rather than added on later.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Local Search,SEO Strategies



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