Google has just announced they are willing to photograph the inside of your business for free and add the photos to your Google Places page. They are starting off in five areas in the US. But why wait?
If you haven’t already done so, go to Google Places and click on the Get Started button under “Claim your business listing on Google – for free”.
Add as much information about your local business as you can, including hours of operation, credit cards accepted and especially some photos, including inside shots. If you can’t take decent pictures yourself hire a local photographer. The money spent should be well worth it.
During the process Google will call your business number and provide you with a PIN to confirm you actually own the business.
The result will look something like the picture below…
Google Search, Google Maps and Google Places are all becoming intertwined and it’s up to you to take the necessary steps to claim your business to promote it online.
Once you’re done, move on to claim your business at Yahoo Local and the Bing Business Portal.
More Info on Google Places:
Getting More From Your Google Place Page
Local Product Listings on Google Place Pages
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Here are some quick online marketing tips:
- Use basic SEO techniques
- Don’t try to fight Google
- Write content for your visitors, not Google
- Google shouldn’t be your only online marketing strategy
To clarify that last tip, as an online marketer you can’t spend all your time chasing your Google search ranking – it will go up and down as Google’s algorithm changes.
You see, Google is in a war. It’s always been in a war. A war against shady marketers who try to “game” the system to come out on top.
In the Internet Marketing world there’s always been tons of ways to get to the top of Google’s search results “the easy way”. Google wants inbound links? Get your auto link generator or join “link farms”. Google wants content? Get your auto content generator and create hundreds of crappy “articles”.
What Google really wants is decent, informative content that answers the user’s question to be at the top of the list.
So, every once in a while Google changes the algorithm it uses to figure out who’s on top to counteract all the spammy sites that have been using so-called black hat SEO methods to get there.
They recently announced a new release that affects about 11.8% of the queries.
Here’s another part of the story. To help your personal browsing, at least using the Chrome browser, there’s an extension called Personal Blocklist. It’s kind of like a “Dislike” button I’ve outlined in red below.
Chrome Personal Blocklist extension
While Google didn’t use data it monitors to create the algorithm, it did compare the new results with the block list and found it matched up pretty well.
However, we did compare the Blocklist data we gathered with the sites identified by our algorithm, and we were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits.
A few of the white hat marketers have already come out saying their page rankings have improved since the algorithm change.
What we tell our clients is “you can’t game the system”. Other than basic SEO techniques that help Google bots – like accurate page titles, descriptions and headings – what you need is legitimate, informative content that helps the searcher.
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In a recent survey of 8,500 small and local businesses by MerchantCircle.com shows that traditional offline marketing strategies continue to decline while social marketing is on the rise. Here’s a summary:
Traditional Offline Marketing
- Print advertising dropped from 40% to 27%
- Direct mail dropped from 39% to 28%
- Yellow Pages dropped from 45% to 37%
although almost a quarter of small businesses still named one of the three as their most effective method of marketing.
Social Media
- Facebook – 70%
- Google [Google is social media?] – 66%
- Twitter – 40%
Not Ready For Prime Time
- Mobile marketing – 15%
- Online group specials (like Groupon) – 11%
Most of the businesses surveyed were pretty evenly split on the effectiveness of social, search and email marketing. Also, about half were using Google Places and a third Facebook Places as well as other traditional online directories like Yellowbook and SuperPages.com
While mobile marketing may still be on the horizon we’re recommending to our clients that they at least set up a mobile-friendly version of their web sites.
The technology is moving and small and local businesses have to move with it..
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According to the latest survey by The Creative Group the most overused and annoying term in marketing is “social media”.
Their list of 25 words and phrases includes other gems like
- Viral
- Proactive
- 24/7
- Social Media Expert
- Interactive
- Value Added
and the always popular “free”, which every marketing guru (another word I find annoying) will tell you grabs the most attention.
So how do you work around annoying and passé terms?
The Creative Group offers four tips for eliminating jargon in your communications:
- Translate your thoughts. It’s typical to think in the lingo you use every day. But when putting your ideas to paper or in an e-mail, take the time to explain the concepts in terms that your audience will easily understand.
- Edit, edit, edit. Many buzzwords are unnecessary. Think carefully: Does a phrase like “at the end of the day” really add to what you’re trying to say? Probably not.
- Break bad habits. We all rely on certain phrases when we speak. If the ones you gravitate toward are on the list of annoying buzzwords, think of alternatives that convey the same meaning.
- Show instead of tell. Rather than relying on buzzwords, use concrete examples to convey your thoughts. For instance, instead of discussing your fully “integrated” marketing strategy for a product rollout, describe the various elements and how they work together.
My solution is to test, test, test. If your ROI (oops, another term on their list) is decreasing. test a different ad with a similar phrase. I’ve found that Roget’s Thesaurus is a marketer’s best friend…
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First, let’s look at our definition of marketing:
Marketing is having the right product in front of the right person at the right time and at the right price.
The rest is strategies, projects and tactics to accomplish all four of the above. Using Internet marketing makes some of these objectives easier.
“Marketing to the masses” is becoming obsolete. Internet marketing specializes in one-on-one relationships. The objective is to maintain that one-on-one feel even as your business grows.
Before the Internet there were two types of marketing. The first was to be in the right place at the right time, meaning when someone was ready to buy a product that you were selling. That meant advertising all of the time through newspapers, radio and television so that when a person thinks “I need this now” they will have seen your ad and buy from you.
The second method was the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages were great for businesses because people who use the Yellow Pages are looking to buy something now. But, the market is limited to people in your local area.
Internet Marketing has opened up a whole new world. Continue reading .
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How would you like to receive an email every time your company name is mentioned online? Actually, it’s easy.
The solution came to mind when I came across an article about a company in Orlando, FL that found out there was a global identity-theft scheme using its company name to build fake web sites and solicit job applicants’ personal and financial information. The only way they found out about it was from people calling their company to ask about a job application they had submitted.
It makes sense to monitor your business name or brand to see whether you are getting comments, both good and bad, online or if someone is misusing your company name.
The solution is called Google Alerts. While you don’t need a Google Account to use it, it’s better if you have one set up. That way you can also use their tools like Google Analytics, Website Optimizer or Webmaster Tools at a minimum. It’s also easier to manage (i.e. delete) Alerts. You can also see the results via RSS feed.
Try it yourself. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and type in your search term. Add what you want searched, how often to be notified, how many search results and where to send the results email. But, I would just preview the results. I haven’t found any way to delete a Google Alert other than through a Google Account.
If your business name has common terms in it, like Joe’s Accounting or Sally’s Dry Cleaners, make sure to put the search phrase in quotes so you don’t get results from just the ‘accounting’ or ‘dry cleaners’ terms.
If you don’t see anything in the results, don’t be discouraged. It’s not a complete search of the web, just “new” items from that day, or that week if you opted for “once a week” under ‘How often’.
But, this way if you are mentioned in a blog or a forum you can go there directly and respond. It’s also a good way to keep track of your competition – to see if they are coming out with new products or services, for example.
With Google Search now showing results from social media and YouTube it’s also a great way to get your company involved online..
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