Today, Google released the Google Local Businesses Center which gives businesses that advertise on the local level some pretty impressive tools to track their web traffic. With these great tools that Google gives you, your business does not even need to have a website to take advantage of this free service.
You will need to have a Google Account,which includes a free gmail account. If you don’t have one, this is really easy to set up as well…you will need a pre-existing email account to sign up for a Google account if you don’t have one already.
How to Add Your Business to The Google Map
So you now have a Google account. The next step in getting your site/business listed on the Google Map is to visit the Google Local Business Center and login with your Google account login info.
Then click the “Add new listings” link. You will then need to fill the form out which includes your location to include country, business name, address, city/town, zip for US, main and alternate phone numbers, mobile, fax, and TTY/TDD. You will then need to put in an email address. If you have a website, I recommend using an email with your domain instead of a free email account. You then have the ability to put in your business website url. Next comes your business description. Be short and concise giving a good non-sales like description. (200 Char max).
Next will come the categories. Prior to doing this, I am going to recommend that you do a bit of keyword research using the Google Adsense Keyword tool to see which of your keyword phrases get the most traffic. So for the Earth-in-Hand Landscape site local profile, I used “Landscaper”, “landscaping”, “landscape contractor”. That way when someone types in “Landscaper Easton, PA” my friend’s website will be on the local listing section.
Important Step in Listing Your Business on the Google Map
For your categories, use the broadest keywords that get the most traffic.
The rest of the process of adding your business is pretty easy and straight forward. Your Google Local Profile can include up to 10 pictures, and 5 videos…I suggest adding as much as you can.
To move your site up in the local listings, encourage your patrons to give your profile a rating. Reviews on local sites can also help.
Below is a video that Google put out for business owners…check it out.
A client asked me about putting a search engine on his site so that visitors could find selected products. Having a search engine on an ecommerce site makes it easier for return visitors to find pages that they visited previously. Having a search function on a site is a usability issue that could result in lower sales if it is not present.
Below are some search engine scripts that I found while doing research, but I have not evaluated them in anyway, but did note when I found a user rating.
Premium Site Search Scripts
For a professional ecommerce site, I would recommend using a premium search script rather than a free search script.
Free is a nice thing, but often times it does come with a price. The price for using a free site search script is often that in addition to searching your site, adds for other sites will appear in the search results. If potentially sending visitors away from your site does not bother you, then I would suggest signing up for a Google Adsense account and using the Google site search tool bar. In addition to the Google site search, I have also included several other free site search script options here as well. http://www.jrank.org/
I just made a video of me making a Rightsizeonline.com Chocolate smoothie for my lunch. I wanted to embed the video on this blog, but I seem to be having technical difficulties. I will have to work on the embeded video functions.
I was just doing a post on The Travels of Lizzie Bean, about one of our favorite sandwich shops, Eve’s Lunch from Norristown, PA, which is currently closed and due to reopen at another location sometime this summer.
I had been trying to look up the site by typing in the name of the restaurant, Eve’s Lunch, but was unable to find the site because they use the url of the site in the title tag, and not the actual name of the restaurant. Google Eveslunch.com and it does show up thankfully. I actually tried to get in touch with them to so see if they would trade SEO for Zeps(yes the sandwiches are that good) I tried calling the number listed on the site which directed me to a voice mailbox that was full. Emails resulted in bounced back messages. I have given them two links and a stumble, so maybe they will eventually be found for their name.
Anyway, back to Twitter. So I did a Google search for “Eve’s Lunch” without the quotes, for which there were 2,270,000 pages in the results. The Tweet “On way to Eve’s lunch for meeting” was at 8. I then used quotes and the Tweet was 7. Then what really shocked me was that when I used the phrase “allintitle:Eve’s Lunch”, I expected the Twitter Tweet to be nowhere in the SERP’s, but it was at 6.
It would seem that the home page of Twitter which has a current page rank of 7, is passing the juice on to individual tweets. However, the juice is not able to be passed on to links on a consistent basis because the url is frequently rewritten as a shorter url by the tinyurl.com url rewrite program that is being utilized.
So since it seems that the first twenty or so characters are being used in the title of the the Tweet. What came up in the title tag for this particular Tweet is “Twitter / Adam Donkus: On way to Eve’s lunch for m… ”
So Does Twitter Have Google Juice?
So if you are going to try and use Twitter for the purposes of SEO( I use it for its social aspects only) make sure that you put your keywords at the beginning of the Tweet, and in the first twenty to thirty characters. I counted 50 characters from the fist T in Twitter to last dot.
But in the end, it probably will not help out your individual sites SEO, but if it shows up in the SERP’s, it would be nice if the url of your site followed shortly there after, even if it is rewritten as a tinyurl, so that any Googlers who might click the link, might also then click the link to your site.
The answer to the question is yes, Twitter does have some Google Juice, but the more important question is, does it pass it on for purposes of SEO? I for one don’t think so, but I could be wrong.
What do you think? Do you think Twitter could play a role in your SEO or SEM?
Link building is an integral part of my job as an SEO Technician(one of my many jobs), and the ability to do it correctly is a skill that is can be easily learned, but does take quite a lot of time to do correctly. There are many resources readily available on the Internet about this very topic. So any knowledge that I may have is already out there. So in a series of posts, I shall, with the help of Lizzie Bean, give instructions on the proper way to conduct manual link building, as opposed to using an automated link building program that submits your site to numerous other sites, such as directories, blogs, FFA pages, and link farms automatically.
Manual Link building does take time, but it is well worth the effort. Web masters or site owners should be weary of Link building deals which promise 100’s of links for a package deal. Often times these link packages will submit your site to numerous directories, using one or two variations of the link text or anchor text(the words that when clicked on take you to another site, page, or location on the same page)as well as limited site descriptions. Anyway the worst thing that can happen is your site is it gets banned or dropped to oblivion in the SERP’s, so enough with the warnings here is….
Link Building Part 1
by Lizzie Bean,PixelHead
Link building instructions
The purpose of link building (obtaining links that point to a website) is to increase search engine rankings for specific keyword phrases. You should get links in directories that link to yours or your client’s sites using a variety of keyword phrases that the client wants to rank for in Google as the anchor text of the link.
Definitions:
Directories – websites that are organized by categories. Each category has links to websites that are relevant to the subject of the category.
Anchor text – this is the text that is linked. When submitting sites to directories the Title that is submitted is usually the anchor text for the link.
Submitting a site -the process of filling out the form on a directory that allows the editors of the directory to review the site being submitted to the directory. To submit a site you will need to find a “Submit Site”, “Add URL” or a similar link/button.
Page Rank (PR) – this is a rating system that Google uses to determine the link popularity of a website. PR ranges from 1 10. The higher the PR on a site – the better. To see the PR – you must install the Google toolbar. PixelHead recommends downloading Firefox with the Google toolbar, which can be done by clicking on the icon in the left side bar. PixelHead gets 1 dollar for every sign up. If you have never used Firefox, give it a try, many unique features make it a great resource, all while being much less prone to viruses than Explorer.
SERP- search engine results page.
SEO- Search Engine Optimization deals with making a site so that it will rank well in the SERP’s. Broken down into two basic parts- on page optimization and off page optimization(link building)
SEM-Search Engine Marketing deals with a variety of methods to get your site out there using the search engines via natural search and paid search.
Stop Words-Words that the Search Engines(Google) ignores. Read this Search Engine Watch post about Stop Words for more info about them, and here is a nice list of Stop words.
What you will need to get started:
1. a list of keyword phrases that you want your site to rank for(future post)
2. a list of description text that will correspond to each keyword phrase
3. a list of sub-pages of the site that each keyword phrase can link to WHEN sub-pages are allowed for submissions.
4. a list of directories to submit your site(Google “directory list”) or visit these two resources below.
A great directory resource, DirectoryCritic has an ever growing list of directories. Voting on directories by those who submit allows for the better directories to place higher on the list, which kind of makes it a web 2.0 site for directory owners/submitters.
Another great site for link building resources is Info Vilesilencer, which to quote the DirectoryCritic, is “The original SEO friendly directory list. Dan has played a key role in the SEO directory revolution and the development of the “search engine friendly” directory standards that we all use today”. And according to the Info.Vilesilencer blog, the biggest update to the sites directory list was just made.
PowerSet is a bright new startup with a nice bankroll that is going to help them in their quest to knock Google out of the number 1 spot for Search. I recently came across the article PowerSet Hype to Boiling Point in the latest from TechCrunch.com, a splendid blog that I subscribe too, which ” is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.” This was the second article that TechCrunch has done on Powerset, but the first that I have read.
I for one will be keeping an eye out for PowerSet when it launches, which by the way has yet to be disclosed. The new Search engine will use natural language by utilization of the “stop words” which Google ignores, unless of course you use quotes around your search phrase. Numerous VIP’s who were allowed to test drive the prototype said that when it becomes available to the general public, they will never use Google again.
Why will I switch from Google to PowerSet?
Google has grown too big and has such an attitude.
Competition which Google has so very little of is needed so that the consumer will benefit.
If I do a search one day for a topic, I should be able to get the same results the next time I try to conduct the same search. Sites(mine included) bounce in and out of the top SERP’s(search engine results pages) way too much for research conducted using it to be accurate or easily duplicated.
Google continues to fleece both advertisers and publishers of Adwords campaigns. Every hear of click fraud. Who benefits the most from the advertising stream…Google. Has Google ever given advertisers money back for fraudulent clicks? Doubtful.
Back in the day before Googling became an accepted part of our vocabulary, I was an advocate of it. Many times while teaching I would recommend to colleagues and students alike to install the tool bar and use it for search. At that time is was the best Search Engine I had ever used. When asked if they had an affiliate program, I received no reply. Now I would be more apt to send youngsters off to use resources such as the Librarians Internet Reference or the History Channel.com. Students especially need to be warned and taught how to do something that Google is uanble to do by itself..choose quality sites from reputable sources.
And the last reason of the current reasons for I switch to PowerSet…I love the PowerSet Logo.
Norristown, PA, which is currently closed and due to reopen at another location sometime this summer.
I recently came across the article 
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