I have discovered with Comcast, cBeyond and 6-flags that they monitor chatter on the Internet and these firms have small little unknown departments to take care of those who SHOUT on the Internet about these poorly run businesses. Well, you see, I'm an Internet Marketer with a Chicago based SEO agency, National Same Day Delivery business and Local Marketing Education portal.  This blog post will rank on the front page of Google in no time if I wanted to.  I just want Comcast to listen to this absolutely stupid situation and give me a freaken break.  I mean, this is so stupid that I hope some media outlets pick up on this and run this story, you dumbass company. Alright, so I was paying something like $130 a month for Internet and TV.  I dropped the Internet, because I just purchased my new Droid phone and a Verizon wireless hub.  I thought I might be able to drop Comcast. Make a long story short, my Internet was disconnected for 60 days before I had enough of Verizon service and wanted the Comcast service, which is great.  Their people suck, at least management.  With this silly story, even dude on the phone thought this was bizzare. I called to get my modem operational again, I never returned it.  The day I reactivated my Internet, it worked great and I was happy...until a week later I was getting collection phone calls for $500 worth of unreturned equipmen[...]

I tell you, sometimes it's amazing just how a message can totally be twisted and turned depending on who you hear it from. I wonder if there is politics involved in this search engine dilemma regarding the oil spill.  I mean, let's consider this video from CNN.  Talk about ignorance on their part, we we're suppose to trust their opinions.  This is wrong on their part and when you listen to this video and break it down, they are doing exactly what they are accusing others of doing.  WHAT?!! CNN's Own Incompetence and Blame Ok, so there's this video on their site that went live a few hours ago. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/06/06/nr.bp.ad.space.cnn?hpt=Sbin CNN Suggests Google and BP are sharing money and laughs to control information to the American Public During this video, CNN's discusses several times on how BP is spending money to basically monopolize the search results and 'push' other stuff down.  It discusses how this company is spending an unknown amount of money per day and how companies like Google are actually accepting this money, and in turn 'placing' them on the top of the search results almost inconspicuously in a very litely shaded area, at the top. In turn, CNN discusses how they are controling the information by canabilizing the information on their site, in turn controlling the truth. In other words, BP, Google, Yahoo [...]

Almost every single week, one my students reach out to me and ask about that special little secret to ranking in the Local Business Results. Now I’m providing some local content for Dan Thies and Leslie Rohde from SEO BrainTrust, and sure enough, their students was the same secret sauce. Whether someone emails me, sends me a tweet, raises their hand while I’m on stage or one of our client from our Algonquin Web Development company, I get asked….what’s the secret? Well, if you know anything about ranking a website on the Internet, it’s a process called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A search engine looks a several factors, likely in the hundreds, to prioritize all the web pages it indexes. So, SEO is a skill that has many, many school of thoughts. You see, this special search engine never tells what they are looking for. So, us so called SEO experts learn the secrets and test and deploy. Bottom line, to rank a website consistently on top you need inbound links and decent website. In the simplest form, the more high quality links you have with relevant, high quality content, the higher you’ll rank. Period. No money exchanged, no favorites, just a democratic ranking from Google based on what it thinks is value-added. Now if you’re searching for [Chicago pizza delivery], in the last year on Google you’ve noticed a little map show up and show[...]

All right, and sitting down right now created a presentation that I hope is going to be one of the best presentations on the Internet that is timely for the launch of the new Google places and provides insight to what is and the how to. While doing this I recently came across a Googler who is local to me in Chicago by the name of Jim Lecinski. I like Jim and I don't even know him. He's a Chicago Blackhawks fan, self-proclaimed as a rabid Blackhawks fan and he's helping to change the world for good by being a Google employee. Anyone that follows me knows I believe this is company is making our planet a better place, so I like Jim by default. Now you see this presentation that I'm doing is on the topic of geo-mods triggers that trigger the local business results when looking for specific products and services and how Google is starting to get a little bit better at trying to determine as to what I am looking for. Sure enough, when searching for the keyword [Chicago beef sandwich] this triggers the local business results gives me two establishments in the Chicago area that feed you these sandwiches. I'm not here to comment on the accuracy or whether or not Google has gotten it right, but I am here to comment on is the second result that is “Baba’s Famous Philly Steak”. I mean, I'm in Algonquin Illinois and a search for Algonquin Hot Dog Stand gives me a local listing o[...]

1. Consistent Listings Of Contact Information All of your contact information should be present in several different places on the internet, this is called a citation, and should always be consistent. On places like your contact page, you should have your complete address, business name and phone number. Preferably you should also have it listed several other places and include links back to your website. For example the business below provides local web development services in suburban Chicago and this is their citation. Algonquin Web Development 200 N. Harrison Street #106 Algonquin, IL 60102 Phone: 1-847-594-7488 2. A Solid Plan Like any other type of marketing, if you're trying to get success online, you need to take the time to build yourself a comprehensive marketing plan, especially including the tips in this list, and then stick with those plans over the long term. 3. Marketing with Email As most experienced marketers know, the money is in the list. Building a strong email list is one of the most profitable ways to promote your business online. 4. Remember To Claim Your Business Listing When you have a listing with a major search engine, you need to claim your listings. Use www.getlisted.org to find if your listings have already been claimed. 5. Gain Business Reviews There are a lot of businesses online, and the only way that you can really ge[...]