 January 13, 2010 - Navigation: Articles - Readers Respond - Video - Small Biz Talk  10 Search Engines Powered by Twitterby Manoj JasraReal Time search has been a major focus of many startups and search giants such as Bing and Google. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Podcasts, YouTube Videos, and Flickr all have taken the user generated content to a whole new level. This has put a lot of pressure on the search engine giants to efficiently track/index content for their users. But, the rate of content generation is so overwhelming that real-time social search engines make more sense than the traditional methods of searching for information....
 Google Shoves Their Liaisons Off Mapsby Miriam EllisGoogle's newest policy change has done more to offend and distance the very people who act as the intro into Google Maps than any other I can recall. Google has decided to stop showing local results for Web Designers, SEOs and advertisers in North America and the UK....  Learn SEO from Your Spouseby Mike MoranYes, you really can learn SEO from your spouse. If you're married, you know something about SEO that you might not be putting to use. Think about how you landed your mate. When you do, you'll be learning something about how to do search marketing the right way....  The Death of the Professional, Brought to You by Googleby Stoney deGeyterI'd love nothing more to see a backlash over the vast amounts of free crap available online and the sites that provide it. Searchers and Internet users would begin to demand quality and search engines wouldn't reward those sites with the greatest amounts of crap over those with smaller amounts of quality content.  Creating Good Localized Copy, Without Much Hassleby Jeff HowardThis is short and sweet local SEO tip and one that can be completed at almost zero cost. Over the past few weeks I've been working with a website that interfaces with a lot wedding vendors, service oriented businesses like florist, photographers, reception halls, DJs. All of these businesses compete locally, and most websites have a number of different pages describing the services offered as well as the experience level of the provider. While reviewing hundreds of these websites I've picked up on a common missed SEO opportunity. That is a majority of the website copy does not include localized... Search Keywords Are Your Market Segmentsby Mike MoranPeople who know how to do offline marketing are often mystified by how to get started with search marketing. They know how to think about their market segments in terms of demographics, so they know which magazines to buy ads in and which industry trade shows to attend. But search seems somehow different, because there are no demographics to latch on to. When I talk to them, things often become clearer when I explain that search keywords are their search market segments....  I Love Me Some Bingby Charles LumpkinMicrosoft Bing has proven to be a valuable resource for paid search advertising. In this video, Charles Lumpkin talks about why you should begin your paid search efforts using Bing.... SEO: Be a Content Creation Beastby Charles LumpkinYou're targeting the right keywords. You've got links pointing back to your site. All the SEO basics seem to be covered. Now what? How do you get that extra bit of traffic?... Take Your SEO from Trash to Cashby Stoney deGeyterA lot of businesses spend their energy on the "exterior" (search engine rankings) while ignoring the interior (building a great website.) One cannot survive without the other.  The Upcoming Battle of the Social Media Industryby Jennifer LaycockWhile I'm a social media strategist for small businesses, my background is in organic search engine optimization. In other words, I come from the "original" snake oil of online marketing. Social media, for all it's hype and loyalists STILL hasn't broken through the mainstream marketing barrier. It's where SEO was half a dozen or more years ago. It's fighting to define itself, to justify itself and to legitimize itself. Basic SEO: Common Landing Page Test Typesby Charles LumpkinSo you're giving the search engines money to get paid search traffic, but do you have good converting landing pages for the people when they get there? How do you know? Watch this video as Charles Lumpkin shares how to measurably improve your landing pages' conversion rate today.... The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimizationby Manoj JasraLast week I caught up with Stephen Woessner, the author of The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization. In his book, Stephen outlines a 15-step process to help improve the performance of your website in organic search. In our chat, Stephen gave me some insight into his latest SEO book.... Return to the Top of this Page 
Return to the Top of this Page  In response to... Google Shoves Their Liaisons Off MapsAside from the SEO specific removal, there's a massive elephant in the room that I have been pondering. In every decent sized city in America are hundreds of independent contractors that have legitimate businesses and are BBB members in good standing, operate honestly, and are all in all fine corporate citizens. Some have small offices, some work from home. Insurance salesman are a classic example. Now imagine if all 2,456 of those businesses claimed their local listing. And that's just insurance. There are hundreds of professions that are legit, have standards and licenses, work from home or small rented offices, and who provide a real services. Home health care, tutors, speech language pathologists, piano teachers, even realtors. The reality is that under the current model, at some point every single Google map will be coated in push pins and useless. It's just a matter of when. I think the local box will go bye-bye from page one and be expanded via a single link to a new page devoted to all things locally search term specific. Then again, I never would have believed I'd see tweets above organics. Google is smart, they know what they are doing. Watch. Google may just be doing all of this as a real-time test, where we are the virtual focus group, and they study reactions via blog comments and forum posts as part of their product dev process. Eric Ward In response to... Google Shoves Their Liaisons Off MapsThis seems to be a case of Google understanding the technology side of the business but completely missing the human side. Many local business owners are good at reading people that they meet and developing a level of trust based off this interaction. This trust is necessary for SEO professionals because of the lag time between services rendered (ie., payment) and results. By Google's own documentation, listing a new business in their local business center can take 6 to 8 weeks (although many times it's quicker), I can't commit to a company that their business will be included before that time. During the 8 week window, I have invoiced and been paid for services rendered, while the company may not have seen the results. Local businesses do not understand the "web geek" thing and are nervous about the unknown. The whole sales cycle and business interaction starts with a local business being comfortable dealing with another local business. The human side of the interaction. Hopefully, Google will quickly realize that local business are more comfortable and prefer dealing with other local businesses. Brian Schreder In response to... The Death of the Professional, Brought to You by GoogleThis is just a bump on a very, very long road. As more brand-level advertising dollars move towards the internet, the hierarchy will change. Content isn't going to become *less* valuable, and as it increases in value it will be easier to justify a greater investment in content generation. At some point, these low-cost content schemes will cease to be competitive. I think that this is a symptom of a greater concern: Internet advertising is stuck in this weird place where print, radio, and TV are holding it back. Most traditional media can't make a profit, yet they continue to exist. I would liken this to a manufacturer of consumer goods "dumping" product at prices that are below-cost in order to try and put a competitor out of business. Instead of worrying about MFA sites, we should ask the FTC to investigate traditional "mass" media for selling advertising at a loss...it's keeping our industry from growing. Once these money-losing traditional competitors are out of the picture, the Internet's economy becomes much more rational. Jason Lancaster In response to... The Death of the Professional, Brought to You by GoogleMFA sites have been around for a long time, and many people have complained loudly, but Google has not yet done anything about them. I doubt they ever will. I certainly doubt they will for something like Demand Media. While Demand doesn't put out the highest quality of content, imo, it's still a universe of quality above what I think of as truly MFA. True MFA sites are far far worse in quality, but unless they are completely blank pages with nothing but ads on them (and there are plenty of those), they aren't kicked out. And even the blank ones stick around unless someone reports them. (Even then, they may not get kicked). While I love a good MFA bashing any day of the week, I wouldn't put Demand into the same category. No, they aren't superior in quality but they are a far sight better than the MFAs that have been around for a long long long time. Should they rank well? eh..maybe not. But if we're going to spend (or more likely, waste) time moaning about MFAs, let's at least try to get rid of the true garbage products (MFA) before attacking the dollar store products (Demand). One is far worse than the other, imo. DazzlinDonna Return to the Top of this Page  Free SEO ToolsThinking of buying SEO software? Then try the best SEO tools free first! Skaffe.com Directory: Show off your website Express Submit today.Quality directories like Skaffe.com offer you strong search engine exposure. WoW DirectoryPowerful and affordable directory marketing services. Submit your website today! Return to the Top of this Page  SOCIAL MEDIA Selecting A Twitter UsernameSEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Keyword Research Tools The Top Six Ways To Leverage TechnoratiWEBSITE DEVELOPMENT My Photos Are Being Ripped OffCOPYWRITING Software For RewritingMARKETPLACE We Need Freelance WritersPREVIOUS WEEK Small Business Forum Update For January 4, 2009 (If you like our search engine news, you'll love our small business news.) Return to the Top of this Page
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