Search

Does your business location show up on Google Maps? If so, are you fully taking advantage of it? If not, why not? It’s free, easy and totally painless … an easy task that will improve your search results even if you don’t have a Web site!

First, let’s find out if you have an accurate listing. Go to http://maps.google.com and search using your business name. Not there? Just add your business directly through the Local Business Center.

If you find your business, review your listing. Clicking on the name of your business will bring up a white information bubble with a “Claim your business” link or if you’ve already taken that step, an “edit” link.

Once you’ve claimed your business listing, Google will verify that you’re the business owner by phone (immediately – an automated call) or you can choose to have them mail you a postcard. We’ve done it both ways, but the phone call route allows you to get it done all in one sitting. Once this step is complete, you’ll be able to log-in and optimize your local business listing.

Your Google Local Business Center listing should bring up an accurate location, phone number, and Web site address at the very least. But you should also include hours of operation, payments accepted, photos and even video. Notice also that your customers can review your business right from within Google Maps, but it will also pull other reviews from 3rd party review sites on the Internet automatically.

To create an effective listing, make sure to submit your:

• Company/organization name, physical address or PO Box, and phone number
• Web site and Email address
• Business description – make use of the information you wrote last week when you defined your business
• Categories – Choose categories that accurately and specifically describe your business. This helps you show up in the searches where you want to be found.
• Hours of operation
• Payment options
• Photos and videos – this will help you stand out from the crowd!
• Any additional details that your prospective customer would find useful

Do you have questions or comments about Google Local? Is this information useful to you? Let us know with your comments below.

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Does Your SEO Expert Know What He’s Talking About?
Social Networking Leads to Social Search

Search engine optimization (SEO) is probably one of the most misunderstood terms by small business owners. It’s a huge topic; many things go into optimizing a website for search. Unfortunately, nearly anyone can pass himself off as an SEO expert, and many small business owners are taken in by “experts,” only later to discover that there were some serious holes in the actual expertise.

SEO is an easy upsell for the web developer. When the benefits of SEO are spelled out clearly, no business owner in his right mind will say they don’t care about a search engine optimized website. Clearly, there’s a financial incentive to the developer to sell SEO services, but not every website developer has enough of a grasp on the basics for it to be of any real benefit to you.

Likewise and for the same reasons, SEO on existing websites is an easy sell for the search engine marketing firm. Either way, you want your website to be found prominently online, not as #106 in the search results. You’d think a firm that specializes in SEO would know what they’re doing, right? Many do, but others engage in practices that will actually hurt your website’s rankings … and it can be hard for the untrained eye to know the difference.

To begin with, there’s more to the equation than what gets done to your site. On-site SEO is only one piece of the puzzle, albeit an important one. Real search engine optimization is an ongoing process, kind of like marketing overall. Just like you wouldn’t (shouldn’t) expect droves of traffic to a brick and mortar store based on it being set up properly for business, with only an “open” sign on the door … it’s not realistic to expect droves of traffic to your site after only the initial search engine optimization process.

In future posts, we’re going to be hitting consistently on the topic of effective SEO, breaking it down in manageable chunks. Whether you do it yourself or hire it out, you owe it to yourself and your business to understand what SEO is and what it isn’t. If you’re not yet a subscriber, be sure to take a moment to subscribe so that you don’t miss any of this vital information.

A few quick tips – SEO is not:

• a design-only function. When you purchase an SEO website design or template, you’re buying a design prepared and friendly for SEO, not to be confused with a site that is effectively optimized for search.
• adding a hidden directory or link farm on your site.
• automatically submitting your site to every irrelevant site online to gain irrelevant links back to your website.
• stuffing your META tags with every loosely related keyword you can think of on every page of your site.
• adding hidden keyword text to your pages (using text the same color as your background).
• using the same title on every page of your site.
• some strange voodoo that only the elite can master. Anyone can master it; the question is not whether it’s out of your reach, but whether you have sufficient time to learn it and carry it out consistently, over time.
• optimizing your site for keywords you could never rank for. It’s about understanding the ratio of search traffic to competition in the search results, and putting your effort where it will bring results.

I’ll come back and add to this list over time. Please chime in with what you’ve learned about useless “SEO strategies” and empty SEO promises. Next up: What exactly is search engine optimization?

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: These and an abundance of smaller social sites are gaining ground as searchable resources. Their value as search engines is directly related to their value as social networking sites. In fact, if you want to know what’s being said on any given topic, your quickest, most accurate resource would be one of Twitter’s many social search tools, such as Twitter Search or Tweet Grid. Why? Because Twitter is where the conversation is happening.

Leigh of Leigh’s Blitherings says, “Twitter and Facebook both are becoming filters where my network are kind enough to only tweet and link to the most interesting content. And Twitter in particular has become a place where I can ask a question and in no time flat have my questions answered in the form of links, referrals and juicy bits of insight.”

I’ve definitely found this to be true. My search habits have changed drastically in the past year. I don’t rely any less on Google, but frequently it’s not my first pick for information retrieval. My personal #1 search engine is Delicious, a social bookmarking service. Why? Because I save 100% of my bookmarks there, and I only bookmark things that I want to return to. My Delicious network appears to feel the same way about it, resulting in highly relevant search results nearly every time.

Close on the heels of Delicious is Twitter. If it’s conversations I’m looking for, this is my first choice. One of our Zero To Sixty markets is the hobby consumer. I can tap into what that market is talking about by simply tapping into the Twitter information stream.

Want to know what people in your area are talking about online? Use Twellow, a Twitter directory, searchable by locale. Or add your locale to a Delicious search and subscribe to the results. Tap into your local network on Facebook. Find and join a local business group on LinkedIn.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many ways to find information in addition to Google … and be sure that I’m not diminishing the importance of Google. For comprehensive search results covering news, blogs, Web sites, etc., Google remains the industry leader. But they’re not the only game in town, and like marketing itself is changing, so is the way we find information online.

Consider the marketing implications for your business. How many different ways can your market find you? Are you visible online today? What are you doing to ensure that you’ll be visible and viable a year from now?

Related Articles (Off-site):

Social Activity Becomes Significant Source of Website Traffic (My inspiration for this article)
It’s Time to Start Thinking of Twitter as a Search Engine
Why Twitter is My Personalized Search Engine
Future of Twitter
Using Delicious for Social Bookmarking