Who knew the power of blogging would explode like it has? It seems like everyone has a blog now, from stay-at-home moms to chefs to local business owners. Blogging is a powerful Internet marketing tool for local businesses as it gives you a new, yet subtle way to promote your company. Think of a blog as a way to communicate to the local community without all the business jargon. The point of a blog should be to put out information only. Write about relevant topics that relate to your business and give important facts that people want and need to know. Avoid being a salesman in your blog or people won’t read it. But provide an invaluable resource that people trust and you will build credibility within your community and generate more traffic. 5 hidden benefits of blogging for local business Change your perspective. Blogging forces you to examine your industry from all angles, not just as a provider of – Read the full article
Google has paved their way through the crowd of search engines by doing everything that they can to ensure that their searchers are getting quality results. They’re able to do this by continuously updating their algorithms to eliminate low quality sites from the SERPs. The latest update that Google rolled out is known as the Google Panda update. This particular one has caused a lot of controversy among the World Wide Web and many large websites (like eHow) have been knocked down in their search engine rankings. You can either look at this as the end of the Internet or you can look at it as a learning experience. For those who want to run away scared, please do so now. This article is for those who want to learn more about how they can prevent being one of the websites deemed as a ranking disaster in the SEO world. What the Google Panda Update Implemented This update was just – Read the full article
The face of one of the most innovative companies in history is their ever-changing, extremely memorable logo. While Google leads innovation in many verticals and constantly “brands” that simplistic colorful logo in our brains, there is a lot behind this work of art and its purpose is not merely to line the walls or logo mats of the Google complex. Way back in 1998, Google created the basis for what we still see today: a simple wordmark logo utilizing 3 main colors and the oddball green on the “l”. The rebellious green goes against the pattern of the main colors in a symbolic gesture that “Google doesn’t always follow the rules.” Since 1998, the main logo has only changed twice with simple changes to the gradient and letter shadowing. The colors and the font are still recognizable across all three with the Google Logo font coming from the German designer, Gustav Jaeger, entitled “Catull BQ”. What is truly inspiring about – Read the full article
Google+ is gaining immense popularity and everyone’s talking about it right now. Forget for a second about its “competition” with Facebook and other social media sites; in and by itself Google Plus is receiving fast and wide acclaim, at a global level, and many even say that soon it is going to act as a channel to get people to patronize your business. A channel, in other words, for Internet marketing and social media marketing. Currently, there are no Google Plus profiles exclusively for businesses, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the social networking site to help your work gain more visibility. Here are some tips on leveraging Google+ in order to advance your business objectives: If you already have a Google+ profile, you are halfway to generating, well, more business buzz. Not yet a member? Well, first you have to create a Gmail account (if you don’t already have one). Then you have to get an invitation. For – Read the full article
FourSquare is an emerging social network that specifically joins consumers with local businesses and local, regional and national brands. Consumers can determine what FourSquare providers are in their area and discover discount coupons, reward programs and heightened FS status, all of which lead to more discounts, rewards and status advancement. Local Businesses Let’s say you own a dry cleaning business. You advertise effectively in the terrestrial world with newspaper ads and even a billboard or two. You have sales regularly, and you are located in a very convenient section of town. You even have a terrific website through which you have a loyal email list to which you send periodic notices, information and yes, sales pitches. However, you want to do more. Enter: FourSquare. If a potential customer finds you among the local FourSquare businesses, and the discounts you post in your business profile presents a lower price than that customer’s usual cleaner or you offer a service the other – Read the full article
Great content comes from great authors. At least that’s what Google thinks. That’s why, in an effort to recognize the people who write original stuff on the Web, the search engine company has recently rolled out a new authorship markup feature. “(It’s) a way to connect authors with their content on the Web,” wrote Google software engineer Othar Hansson in a company blog post. “We’re experimenting with using this data to help people find content from great authors in our search results.” It gets a little technical, but the development is in line with Google’s attempt to encourage more original content to be published on the Web, all while minimizing the influence and performance of low-quality content (from content farms) in search results. Google’s support for authorship markup extends to include: Prominently displaying the names of authors of articles within search results Enabling people to use Google search results to learn more about, find other works by, or contact and – Read the full article
There are tons of ways to get more followers on Twitter. Don’t believe us? Do a quick search on Google. Countless articles, blog posts, and presentations will show you how to do just that – and subsequently win support for your business and brand through the popular microblogging / social media service. But if you’re looking for unconventional ways to increase your Twitter follower count, it might not be worth your while to sift through so much online content, only to find the same tips and strategies. So we came up with this list, which we hope differentiates your Twitter social media marketing efforts from that of others – and will just as successfully prompt users to click that green Follow button. 1. Join tweetups. These face-to-face meetings between a local community of Twitter users can help you meet new contacts, find new partners and clients, establish your industry expertise, gain more followers, and say something without a 140-character limit. – Read the full article
In lieu of the recent news about the Facebook smear campaign against Google, it seems that Google may be poised to remain the top dog in online ad spend this year. Last week, the story regarding Facebook hiring PR firm Burson Marsteller to spread lies about Google’s new “Social Circle” went viral. The war over the social graph, a data set of information about the social networks users are connected to, is in full force. However, Google isn’t even flinching. According to Fortune, Google’s Eric Schmidt insisted that Microsoft, not Facebook, was the true competitor to Google. He said, “Facebook users tend to use Google Search. Facebook’s ads business does not displace our advertising. I’m somewhat perplexed by the obsession because I don’t think the facts support it. Things are going great for Google.” The facts may support that businesses prefer to use Facebook and Google simultaneously; however, the percentage in which they invest their marketing budgets may be a – Read the full article
