Marketing on the Web
The Basics: Immediately Actionable Items There are two different ways to look at the top local ranking factors: what matters and what you should work on. Several of the key factors to ranking are well are out of the typical company's grasp, but here is a list of 10 recommended factors that you can work on today. The actionable factors are: Your physical address matching/listing the city where you're located. Manually verifying your ownership of the company's Google Places page. Hav...
MoreChoosing the Right Title Tags and Meta Descriptions
I am routinely surprised at how many people still equate Meta-Keywords with SEO. While that element hasn't been used in a while (Yahoo stopped when Bing began providing their results), Title Tags and Meta Descriptions continue to be important on-page elements.
MoreWhat Does Your Online Company Profile Look Like?
A New Age for Businesses - What Does Your Online Company Profile Look Like? Social media has changed the way that we market ourselves. Social Media is one of the largest avenues for advertising. ComScore reported on June 11, 2012 that over 82% of the world engages in online social networking. Consumers trust "social proof" over any other type of communication online. When they can see that you have customers interacting and talking about your product or service, a level of trust is develop...
MoreSEO Audit – Before You Design Your Next Website
In this video I discuss the need for an Website Audit. Sometimes called an SEO Audit, we recommend an audit anytime you're designing or re-designing a website. If your business is dependent on your website for new business, an SEO Audit is an first important step to getting it right. The Audit digs into what is working and what's not with your website and looks at the market to see what is working for those you are competing against. I have delivered dozens of Website Audits at this point and...
MoreSEO Starter Guide by SEOMOZ
I previously posted links to Google's SEO Starter Guide in the 2008 and the update in 2010, but there have been no recent changes to Google's guide despite dramatic changes to ranking signals that occurred with the Panda and Penguin updates in 2011. SEOMOZ published this update to their SEO Starter Guide in May of 2012. It touches on optimizing for Google and Bing. -- Worth reading! > The Beginner's Guide to SEO by SEOMOZ
MoreSocial Media & “Authentic” PPC
Let me state up front that this article is not about pay per click advertising, but rather the power of being authentic in your marketing efforts. What follows is a funny story involving those words (pay per click) that illustrates authenticity. I was working at an ad agency several years ago and helped a client develop and launch a large website that was a directory of sorts for their industry. Along the way, they hired a marketing director. She came from another industry and was more f...
MoreChoosing Key Words and Phrases for your Business
In this video, Philip discusses choosing the best key words and phrases for your website. For the uninitiated, this is about choosing the right words and phrases to use within your content. The meta-keyword tag that was heavily used (and abused) over the last decade is not longer a part of the ranking algorithm of any major search engine.
MoreGoogle Places becomes Google Plus Local
---- Update Start ---- Google has clearly changed their strategy for the better with Google Plus Local. In this case, Google is looking to keep things authentic, so you'll need to start by setting up a 'real' Google Plus account. Then create a Google Page for your business and then click the "verify" link in the bottom right to have a post card mailed to you with a verification code. In my case, Google actually called to check on me. I could tell the agent was using Google street view to c...
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