Category Archive: Tips

May
04
2009

Google Local under Scrutiny

May 4, 2009

Since Google has introduced local business results into the mainstream results, along with several other results, we are seeing how Google is greating a strong SERP with blended results. We now see shopping results, local business results, videos, standard organic and PPC in the SERP. For the most part, each of these components use a different algorithm.

While a locally based offline business with a desire to find business using the Internet has several options on which methods to deploy resources, it is almost impossible for a small company to deploy every tactic. In fact, it would be merely impossible. We do know however that the search engines drive more traffic to a website than all other mediums combined. Therefore understanding Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is critical. As I always have discussed, I recommend three methods in order to increase visibility in the SERPs. These are

Efforts in the Organic Results (SEO)
Efforts towards Local Business Results (the map)
Efforts towards PPC (Google Adwords)

Google’s Local Business Results are playing havoc for thousands of small businesses around the globe. This algo is as strong as the organic algo were in 2002. It sucks! There are so many challenges being faced with business’ records being combined, including wrong addresses, phone numbers and simply wrong data.

There is also a challenge with what Google is trying to do. Every local industry is different and has different business models. The transportation industry is getting horrible results in the local listings because locally based transportation companies servicing a major metropolitan area is typically located in the suburbs. Google is looking for addresses in the city, yielding the wrong results. The Florist industry has been hijacked by spammers, who have blackmailed local florists for cash to give them their results back. The locksmith industry has been spammed with thieves, claiming to be locksmiths and stealing your keys to your home and vehicles.

Last week while discussing the nightmare in the Local Business Listings with another local SEOer from a San Fransisco Web Design and Local SEO firm owner, Miriam Ellis, I learned and concluded that the Local Results efforts being put forth by Google is simply a little premature. It’s a mess! It’s no secret that Americans are using Google to find local businesses. It’s no secret a web surfer will click on either an organic listing, local listing or paid listing. We know exactly how to market ourselves to achieve rankings in the organic and paid listings, however local is still up in the air. We do know a lot about that and in MLBO you’ll find the strategies that do work, however there are a lot of changes happening daily at Google and there are still a lot of problems at Google. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about ethical companies trying to market themselves. We determined several scenarios with local businesses that may appear spamming to the search engines, yet be completely ethical, moral marketing strategies.

I also want to point you to a fantastic interview among 20 expert local business marketer regarding Local Search Ranking Factors. Check it out, a lot of what you read is included in MLBO however and inline with my teachings, it’s just this is coming from another source.

Interview with 20 experts

All in all, I stand firm that SEM is marketing. Regardless if today some strategies may come off as spammy for the local results, move forward with your strategies if you feel what you are doing is ethical in the offline world. Google will shake itself out and determine what is ethical and moral and I believe Google will get this right.

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.scott-gallagher.net/google-local-under-scrutiny/

Apr
09
2009

Mobile Marketing for Local Small Business

by Administrator

April 9, 2009

Small Business Mobile Marketing

Recently on one of my social sites, a member asked my opinions about mobile marketing for the locally based business. While this is not intended to be a complete article, I am going to provide my opinions and resources to my community. While I also felt this should be for my private paying readers, I have decided to make this public because there is some great information all small businesses should know about.

Mobile Marketing for Local Businesses is the future. Not Internet Marketing, Mobile Marketing. Here’s some facts.

1.4 B Internet Users
4B wireless subscribers worldwide
Facebook has 600k new subscribers per day, increasing login rate through mobile devices
3B SMS users worldwide.
USA lags.
400M worldwide accesses mobile web.
44M in the USA

A friend of mine, Kim Dushinski is author of a published book and is an expert on Mobile Marketing, recently gave these facts to the System Seminar attendees, a large International Internet Marketing conference. Here is her site. Mobile Marketing. Her site is packed with resources and recommendations for this type of marketing. I will only endorse what she endorses.

Make your site available to the mobile market now. Even if you don’t start promoting for years, get your desired domains now. Buy your Mobile Domain now! Buy your .mobi domain at this link here. Get a .mobi domain the same as your site, add a simple plug in so it can be viewed.

There is a best practices guide you should read.

Mobile Marketing Best Practices

Here is a wordpress plug in to make your wordpress blog Mobile friendly.

Mobile WordPress Plugin

As far as SEO for mobile, the game is developing. Here’s some quick info.

97.5% of the market share for mobile search goes to, you got it, Google.
Shorter time to find stuff.
Different Algorithm and their main search.

Today, SEO is pretty simple for Mobile Marketing. Here are some quick tips for Mobile SEO, or mSEO.

Have an Error Free Site
Mobile, Free Content
Mobile Links

Google has a Mobile Keyword Tool, finally! You need to log into your Mobile adWords Campaign to use it. Can’t show you a link, sorry!

Things to look out for in the future for Mobile Marketing, according to Kim!

Microsoft Tags
Mobile Affiliate Programs
Android (Google’s Phone)
eBooks on Mobile Marketing
Mobile Social Media Marketing (mSMM)
Local Mobile Search (this is it guys)
Mobile Social Bookmarking
mCommerce

Just think of the marketing implications to this. Geo based, opt-in marketing? Targeted marketing based on the demographics of the phone users plus their location. This is just sick! (this is a positive thing, for those old skool readers!).

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.scott-gallagher.net/mobile-marketing-for-local-small-business/

Mar
27
2009

TWEELIVERING (n.): The process of using Twitter to find Business for Local Businesses

by Administrator

March 27, 2009

Ahhhh, Twitter. You thought Google rose quickly and then MySpace what is pulling in 230,000 users a day. The man behind the Evolution of Dance displayed that YouTube has greater distribution power than NBC, CBC and Fox COMBINED!

For the first time in history, we as the average American can truly have a freedom of speech that is entirely uncensosed and broadcast to millions. I mean it, millions.

Twitter is yet another hugely successful Internet idea. It started as a concept for an internal solution at a corporation, now Barack Obama is following me, Scott Gallagher. I know that Lance Armstrong slept well last night because he told me this morning. My clients who follow me found out this morning that I’m visiting a large Internet Marketing conference this evening. They see updates that I’m on the hill snowboarding. Do they really care? Probably not, however perception is reality. They get value on occasion from resources that I tweet about however they also build a relationship with me, albeit virtual, that is unknown in the traditional business world.

People buy People. They don’t want to be sold, they want to buy. A Chiropractor, for argumentative sake, is not much different than the chiropractor down the street, in terms of their services. However their personality is likely very different. Their patients will buy from the first doctor because of their relationship with them.

Courier service, a not so complex service. You pick up a package and deliver it on time. There are 300 couriers in Chicago. Besides branding, there is very little distinguishing factors among couriers. Web 2.0 sites like Facebook and now Twitter allow you build those relationships online and take them offline.

If you don’t think this works, ask the Industry Guru from Hot Shot Delivery in Houston. Past president of the Texas Courier and Logistics Association, Eric Donaldson tweets from his blackberry in his car (at red lights of course), office and maybe sometimes or places in his home. He has followers and building a local audience to take relationships offline to make some money from a business that is one of the oldest industries ever.

The goal is to find locals that are talking about the products and services you offer. Once you find these people, start following them on Twitter. About half the people you follow, will follow you. Once someone is following you, you now have permission to tweet them, friend them, drive them offline and market to them.

I’ll use the example of Eric in Houston. Eric should go to Twitter and do a search for ‘houston’. This will bring up all the tweets where anyone has mentioned ‘Houston’. These might be locals, but at the least have an interest in Houston. He’ll look at each of the 100′s of profiles and determine whether he should follow them. If they are active, several hundred posts, and they appear to offer business dialect, a close to 50/50 split of followers and followings with more than 50 followers, Eric should friend him. Then wait three days.

After three days, if they have not followed you, stop following them. Unless you are really concerned about marketing to them, you don’t want too many people you follow who don’t follow you. Oh, follow Barack Obama, then he can spy on what you are saying… Check out this tool, Twitter Karma. Log into this with your Twitter username and you can easily see who is following you and compare it to whether you are following them. Then make batch updates. So simple!

There is awesome third party tool to help. It’s called Tweet Later. Click on the link to check it out. This program, which has a free no credit card trial for 3 weeks, allows you to set up auto-responders. This means that when someone follows you, this system will automatically send them a tweet from you welcoming them. You can also include a link to perhaps an article you wrote, a cool tool they might enjoy or your website.

With this program, you can set it up to send Tweets at a later time, or scheduled. It is very robust for the local business to market themselves through Twitter.

A final tool I’ll discuss that I use is called Tweet Deck. It’s a piece of software that you install on your computer that allows you manage your tweets from your desktop, rather than the web based Twitter system. I love it, except for the annoying tweet sound every 15 minutes!

So, use keywords that are relevant to your geographical location, your service and a combination of both. Start following. Tweet A LOT. Make it interesting, funny, slightly controversial. Retweet others. Unfollow those who aren’t following you. Add an auto-responder. Tweet to send people offline. To an email list. Do this for one month, 30 minutes a day. You will get results.

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Dec
30
2008

Viral Hockey video on Youtube

by Administrator

December 30, 2008

I just thought I’d post something that hits two passions of mine, Internet Marketing and Hockey. Well, while this video has a personal purpose two years ago, in the last 4 weeks this video is receiving international viewership and has gone viral.

Watch this 3 minute video on a the majic hockey helmet. Its a great video to study and understand why videos go viral and what is required to create a viral video. This isn’t the bionic burger, however I bet this video will hit over 100,000 hits before the hockey season is done.

Someone in the hockey niche? Take advantage of this. This viral video isn’t being monetized and you can monetize it. Tip, viral videos that are being monetized are a lot of the time re-distributed videos, repackaged and rebranded. In a few weeks, I’m releasing my course which included a how to on viral videos. I’ll demonstrate several dozen videos we’ve made that have gone viral. I’ll demonstrate the component that need to be in a video in order to go viral.

Here is few tips on what will help make a video go viral.

Humor, talent, celebrities, kids, physical injury, sex and strong emotion are some of the factors in this concept.

Remember, for the first time in history do we have the power to distribute our message to an audience much larger than the readership of New York Times, LA Post and Globe and Mail combined using the most democratic medium available.

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.scott-gallagher.net/viral-hockey-video-on-youtube/

Dec
12
2008

Video for Small Business

by Administrator

December 12, 2008

∞$15 Billion Videos viewed monthly
∞52% of all web Traffic is video[i]
∞Video Listings show up in the SERPs within 10 minutes
∞The human brain is optimized for story telling and immersive sensory experience – this is video!

Online video is one of the best venues to connect an audience. This new avenue allows video creators to communicate a message on multiple levels through visual imagery, spoken words, music and visual text. This is a huge potential to reach a massive audience with your small business. This strategy alone can help dominate the entire front page of Google.

With online video you can also reach a huge local audience for a minimal investment, thus the ROI of online video marketing can be surprising. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau; more than 50% of the US population will watch video online next year. That’s over 150 million! According to comScore, Americans watched 9 billion online videos just in the month of July.

While there are many sources for your video to be viewed by many, we’re talking local business marketing and many of the online video strategies you’ll talk about just don’t apply. Online video for small local businesses is more about conversion than driving traffic, yet plays a great role in acquiring links and completing you online strategies.

The question is, how video applies to your small business? Video help conversion.

Watch our training videos on Email Marketing for Small Business

Conversion.

We live in a world of video, yet the internet is still in a place where newspapers were a hundred years ago. Then came television news, and specialized stations broadcasting the news to us in similar formats. The television has completely changed the way we used to acquire and distribute our information from a hundred years ago. The Internet is no different, however today we are in the dark ages. That’s right, the Internet as we know it today will be mocked by our children as they grow up. You think Granny has seen a lot of change since the early 1900′s? The rate at which humans have adopted technology has exponentially increased in time. While I can not support any figures without documentation and supporting evidence, please try and challenge this claim. For the population of Americans to hit a saturation rate of 95% for newspapers took longer than the telephone, which took longer than television and now the Internet is well on its way to achieving that magic number in much, much less time than them all. Ironic isn’t it, that the Internet as we know it today is merely a digital version of a newspaper, at least for the small local business. Follow the trends folks, video is popping up everywhere on the Internet, why not your own business.

Let’s consider this. Companies like Google want to organize the world’s information. They have highly paid, MBA and Doctoral grads studying trends all day long.

Watch our Testimonial and Promotional Videos

They know where the Internet is moving; at least they are predicting it better than us. Didn’t they just buy the largest video broadcasting site in existence? Ever heard of YouTube?

The point is here is that video is, or soon to become a staple of the Internet. Broadband is cheap, hosting is even cheaper, technology is fast enough and video creation is fairly easy and cheap.

Video is also a very big thing right now in SEO. Video on your site greatly increases you’re exposure and ability to be ranked.

Video also vastly increases your conversions on your site.

TO LEARN HOW TO CREATE VIDEOS, SIGN UP FOR FREE AT WWW.MARKETINGLOCALBUSINESSONLINE.COM

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.scott-gallagher.net/video-for-small-business/

Sep
04
2008

Targeted Email Marketing

by Administrator

September 4, 2008

So its been almost two weeks since I’ve posted. Well there’s good reason folks! I’ve been working very hard on my offline business, which provides much of the same services to small businesses that I talk about here. One new things we have done is completly refined and developed a very high quality process to provide small businesses with a Targeted Email Marketing program. Check it out!

I also want to point out that I’m also closer on finishing my ebook. This will be the book. This is the information all small business owners will want to read. This is written with you in mind, not a techie. See, most small businesses survive today by catering to small niche. Its that niche you need to find and leverage on the Internet. In 2008, that’s pretty easy to do. I’m responsible for helping rank and promote hundreds of small local based businesses online. Get on my email list and I’ll be sure to let you know when that book is available.

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.scott-gallagher.net/targeted-email-marketing/

Jul
14
2008

Actual Search Volume Data!

by Administrator

July 14, 2008

Time has come folks, depsite Yahoo! being highly scrutinized in the past for releasing hard data and Google being the convert engine dangling carrots, Google has finally provided a tool to give us actual search data!. I mean, this means no longer we need to use expensive services like Trellian Keyword Discovery or Word Tracker that has data compiled from Dogpile and other not so reliable sources. Granted, Google’s data may be skewed from rank checkers and they provide ‘approximate’ data, but with roughly 67% market share, we not have even better data for keyword research.

Did you know ‘Chicago Courier Service” is searched over 5980 times a month? That’s 200 times a day! There’s business folks out there on the Internet.

Here’s is the information right from the Horse’s Mouth.

Based on advertiser feedback, and our commitment to provide useful tools and information for our advertisers, we’ve now added search volume data to the Keyword Tool. Now, when you use the Keyword Tool to search for relevant keywords to include in your keyword list, you’ll be able to see the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network. These approximate numbers are intended to provide better insight into keywords’ monthly and average search volumes than previously provided by the tool.

You can view the new statistics by looking at the Keyword Tool’s Approx Search Volume columns. Search volume data can be useful to you in several ways, including:
• Account structure: You may want to create a new ad group around high-traffic keywords that you find particularly relevant. Closely target ad text and a specific landing page to the small, narrowly-focused set of similar keywords you’ve found through the Keyword Tool.
• Budget planning: See how much traffic is available to your keywords so you can better plan your budget.
• Keyword choice: Search for and select the relevant keywords most likely to return quality leads within your budget.
Remember, the Keyword Tool also provides several other keyword-related metrics that can help you select highly relevant keywords to improve the overall performance of your campaigns. You can easily view data on advertiser competition, search volume trends, estimated average CPCs, and estimated ad positions for keywords.”

To use this tool, visit Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

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Jul
09
2008

SEO Rap! The SEO rapper brilliantly discusses web design

by Administrator

July 9, 2008

OK, I had to share this. This dude works for an online marketing agency in the southwest and did a pretty darn good job at rapping about SEO, what to do and what not to do. Its definitly worth the listen. You can see him live at Stompernet Live 6 in Atlanta this June.

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Permanent link to this article: http://www.scott-gallagher.net/seo-rap/

Jul
09
2008

Online Marketing Mysteries for your small business

by Administrator

July 9, 2008

I was asked to speak on Online Marketing for the MCAA‘s national convention. Here I took a piece of it to discuss Search Engine Optimization for your small business servicing a local market.

Watch Part 2
Watch Part 3
Watch Part 4

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Jul
09
2008

Optimization Tips for your small business website

by Administrator

July 9, 2008

It amazes me how many websites in the world exist that are poor design. Dealing in the Courier industry, their website is their store front, one of two points of contact with customers. Why, when the average courier company in the USA does roughly $2.5M in sales have such crappy websites? I mean, cough up $3000 for a well designed site that caters to the various audience members. The Internet is here to stay folks.

Putting functionality and design aside, the Search Engines want to rank quality sites higher in their ‘organic’ listings. If they provide poor quality sites in their rankings, the ‘searcher’ will go to another search engine. Point is, if Google doesn’t like certain things about your site, you won’t get ranked.

What are these things? There are two places you need to look.

1. On-the-page factors

2. Off-the-page factors

Today, I’m going to point out some basics from #1. Although this only represents somewhere around 30% of the weight in your rankings, without it, you won’t get ranked…period. This information is readily available and basic, so do it! If you website lacks any of this, contact your webmaster immediatly to enhance your site for promotion. You’ll enjoy the benefits.

This is your On-the-page Website Check List.

1. Validate your HTML code. Use the W3C Markup Validation Service.
2. Name your files with keywords and make sure you use hyphens instead of underscores.
3. Quality Anchor text in the footer of each page.
4. Have you properly ALT tagged your images?
5. Title Tag with main keyword and 100% relevant to the content. Stays withing the SEs guidelines.
6. Your description tag needs to work hand-in-hand with the Title to get the searcher to “click” on the listing. Sometimes this is what is displayed in the search engine results page.
7. Every page should have a unique Title & Description.
8. Be careful of using the money keywords in the keyword description for competitors to yank.
9. Is the correct DTD statement being used?

10. Avoid using Javascript and when used, it should be referenced as an external file.

11. CSS should be referenced as an external file. DO NOT use tables or frames. CSS is more work and effort on the developers part, but its better design
12. Are you using a heading tag and is it compelling?
13. Do your main graphics use the ALT tag properly?
14. Place your keyword phrase in the following areas:

i. Title Tag

ii. Meta Description

iii. H1 tag to begin the content

iv. First paragraph of content

v. Appearing in Bold or Italic in the first three paragraphs of content

vi. Appearing in the filename (with hyphens not underscores)

vii. Used in anchor text to either an internal page or relevant external site.
15. Check for bad links.

16. Fix bad links and create XML Sitemap and submit to Google. That’s submit your sitemap, NOT your site to the Google directory.

17. Don’t display different information to the search engines to deceive them. They are getting smarter daily at the black hat tricks.

18. READ THE GOOGLE WEBMASTER GUIDELINES! (be weary, Google only gives a very high level overview of what they want, but they’ve done a great job outlining the biggest, most common tricks)

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