Moved My Blog

I moved my blog to my website:
www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Google+ My Business & Yelp Reviews - What to Tell Your Clients

It is important to have clients leave reviews of your service/product on Google+ My Business and/or Yelp. The more reviews you have, the more exposure you get on the web. This is very important... and yes, it's worth the effort to encourage reviews. But as difficult as it may be to get clients to take the time to leave a review, there is another hurdle set up by Google and Yelp. And it's best to inform your clients about it beforehand.

Google and Yelp try to avoid having people leave bogus reviews. For example, they don’t want a friend or family member to leave a false review. In order to try and minimize these issues, they each have their own requirements to leave a review.

Google+ My Business requires that you be logged into a Google account to leave a review. If you have a gmail account for example, you can log in (if you aren’t already) and then leave a review. If you do not have a Google account, they will ask you to create a Google+ account before you can leave your review. It’s free and will not cause any harm.

Yelp requires that you have a Yelp account (referred to as your profile) to leave a review. If you don’t already have one, it’s easy to create it. In order for your review to display on Yelp, you must have previously left at least one Yelp review. If this is your first Yelp review, they think you may just be a friend of the vendor and not really a client. So it’s important to begin leaving reviews on Yelp so they will all be visible and useful (perhaps for a restaurant or doctor).

by Joe Seidler
www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

How to Use YouTube for SEO

As I have mentioned before, you can improve your SEO by uploading videos to YouTube and including a link to your website. WhiteSharkMedia.com gives a few tips below how to best take advantage of this opportunity:

Titles and Tagging

YouTube can’t view and understand videos (yet), so it relies heavily on video titles and tags to index the content. Titles work similarly to Meta titles on regular web pages. You want to write them for the viewers not the search engine while sprinkling in the important keywords that you want your video to rank for.

Tags are a bit tricker, they are similar to the old Meta keywords on regular pages.The goal is to make relevant tags, quality over quantity, as you want your viewing time to be high and irrelevant tags bring irrelevant views. YouTube has this to say about viewing time:

"Watch Time is an important metric to promote videos on YouTube. The algorithm for suggesting videos includes prioritizing videos that lead to a longer overall viewing session over those that receive more clicks.”

High Quality Descriptions

Descriptions are often overlooked by SEOs since links within the description are NoFollow and pass no value. This however is a terrible mistake; video descriptions are a great place to further explain your video, provide social media links about yourself to the viewer, mention other videos that might be of value to the viewers, etc. Fill in your description and never underestimate the power of text on a YouTube video.

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Updated On-Page SEO Advice

Here is a good article about how On-Page SEO is changing (getting more sophisticated) from The Moz Blog:
http://moz.com/blog/7-advanced-seo-concepts?utm_source=sendgrid&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=top10

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Finally, AdWords Can Track When You Get a Phone Call Lead

Google just announced "Website Call Conversion". It lets AdWords know when someone came to your website from one of your ads and then called you using the phone number on your website. This is very important... it means now you can really know if you are getting enough leads to justify what you pay for AdWords!

For more details on how this works, check out this Google page:
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2014/08/introducing-website-call-conversions.html

If you get the majority of your leads from phone calls (rather than people submitting your Contact form from your website), you will want to take advantage of this immediately. It might show you are either wasting your money on AdWords or you are getting a good return on your money. Either way, you will finally know.

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

SEO Important Factors in 2014

Every year, SearchMetrics releases an SEO Ranking Factors Study. The key take away this year is that content may now be truly king.

Content

• There is a measurable correlation between the quality of content and rankings. This is demonstrated by, among others, the analysis of two new features based primarily on word co-occurrence analysis: Proof and Relevant Terms.
• The length of content continues to increase.
• A good internal linking structure is an important factor, and probably the most underrated SEO measure.

Onpage Technical SEO

• Onpage, the keyword remains an important part of the overall concept for SEO, often represented by a balanced presence in Title, Description, Body copy, H1, H2, etc. Needless to say, that keyword stuffing should still be avoided. However, there is a definite trend towards developing keywords to topics to generate holistic content.
• Site load speed is a very important performance factor.
• Good site architecture is the beginning and end of effective SEO.

Backlinks

• The quantity and especially the quality of backlinks remains important.
• The number of keyword backlinks continues to decrease, even if the correlation increases.

User Signals

• Both the click-through rate and the time-on-site are considerably higher in better ranking sites – this may appear obvious, but average values determined over many URLs can be used as a benchmark for your own optimization.
• The bounce rate is lower for top-ranking URLs.

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Google My Business... a new name for an old service

Google has been focused on a service to help businesses who sell their service or product locally for a few years now. It was first called Google Local Listings, then Google Business, then Google Places, then it was folded into Google+ and got very confusing. And now they have changed its name again... now it's Google My Business.

When you search for a local business, you often see a map with pins in it on the search results page. This is what Google My Business is (sometimes people refer to it as Google Maps). If you want your business to be included on the map with its own pin, you must create a Google My Business account. It's free, but it has a few steps that can be confusing. For example, to verify you really are the owner of the business, they will mail you a postcard with a PIN that you must enter into your Google My Business account to get it turned on.

But make no mistake...
If you have a business that sells locally, you should create your Google My Business listing ASAP!

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Double Benefits From Video on YouTube

How many things can you do that gets more visitors to your website, and then turns more visitors into customers? Not many… but putting a video about your business on YouTube does just that.

When you post a video on YouTube about your business, you include a link to your website. So you gain a backlink from YouTube which helps your SEO (keyword ranking). And when a visitor to your website clicks on your link to your video, they become more involved and typically are more likely to contact you (an established fact).

A video does not have to be expensive to create. You can do it yourself. Take a 20-30 second video with your phone of your customer’s new hairdo you gave them, or new piano you sold them, or new rollerblade you repaired, or new lawn you just landscaped, and then upload to YouTube. If you don’t have a YouTube account, go to their website and create one; it’s easy.

A total of about 10 minutes of your time can have a very positive impact on your business.

Do it… now!

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Google+ Places and Yelp Reviews

It is important to have clients leave reviews of your service/product on Google+ Places and/or Yelp. The more reviews you have, the more exposure you get on the web. This is very important... yes, it's worth the effort. But as difficult as it may be to get clients to take the time to leave a review, there is another hurdle set up by Google and Yelp. And it's best to inform your clients about it beforehand.

Google and Yelp try to avoid having people leave bogus reviews. For example, they don’t want a friend or family member to leave a false review. In order to try and minimize these issues, they each have their own requirements to leave a review.

Google+ Places requires that you be logged into a Google account to leave a review. If you have a gmail account for example, you can log in (if you aren’t already) and then leave a review. If you do not have a Google account, they will ask you to create a Google+ account before you can leave your review. It’s free and will not cause any harm.

Yelp requires that you have a Yelp account (referred to as your profile) to leave a review. If you don’t already have one, it’s easy to create it. In order for your review to display on Yelp, you must have more than one Yelp review. If this is your first Yelp review, they think you may just be a friend of the vendor and not really a client. So it’s important to begin leaving reviews on Yelp so they will all be visible and useful (perhaps for a restaurant or doctor).

by Joe Seidler
www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Update Your Website Every 3 Months

Google likes to see websites that are updated every once in a while. They will rank its SEO higher if it thinks it is an active website. So every 3 months or so update your website even if it's only minor text changes.

But better yet, add new content. Adding new information to your website will always help your SEO. And don't forget about adding photos and videos too.

And get listed. Here's a free service:
getlisted.org

by Joe Seidler
www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Website Page Download Speed

This topic may sound too technical to deal with, but ignore it at your website's SEO peril. 

Google measures how long it takes for a website page to download and be visible, and they lower your SEO keyword rankings if it takes a long time. In general, you want your website pages to download in less than 3 seconds. Here are steps you can take to measure and improve your website's download speed:

First, you can see how long your website pages take to download on this site:
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
Just enter one of your website page's URL and watch the counter.

If you want to see how Google ranks your website's download speed, check out this site (and enter one of your website page's URL). In general, you want a rating of better than 75 (out of 100). This site also shows the high priority fixes you can do to improve your website's download speed:
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO SPEED UP DOWNLOADS?
If your website is a WordPress site, make sure you have a "cache" plugin. A good one is "W3 Total Cache":

    "W3 Total Cache" plugin settings to check -
          1. General Settings:
               - Browser cache enabled
               - Page cache enabled
          2. Browser Cache:
               - Enable HTTP

If you need some advice on any of this, please leave a comment and I will reply quickly.

Here's to speed…

by Joe Seidler

www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Google+ Example

Google+ is social media, and as such it can be a good way to communicate with your current customers and potential future ones. But you might say, isn't Facebook just as good for this? Well, not quite…

Facebook is great when you want to follow all of your friends and send a post to everyone. But what if you only want to follow a sub-set of all of your friends, and sometimes want to send out a message only to some of them? This is where Google+ shines. It was created to cater to business people who want to follow and communicate with different groups of people; and do it often.

My previous blog post said Google+ can help your business. So let's try out an example. Say you are a professional makeup artist who mostly works with brides the day of their wedding, but sometimes you get a client who needs your help for a special occasion, but not a wedding. What would you do with Google+?

First you would create a Google+ account using your name (not your company name). You would include your address, email, phone number, a link to your website (and blog if you have one), a tag line briefly describing your business, and an introduction to you and your business. 

Next you would create a few "circles". Perhaps you might call them:

1. Wedding clients

2. Non-wedding clients

3. Potential clients

4. Other Makeup Artists

And likely also create a few non-professional circles like:

5. Family

6. Local Friends

7. International Friends

Step 3 is adding people to your circles. Within Google+ it's easy to enter a person's name and see if they already have a Google+ account. If they do, you just add them to the appropriate circle. If you can't find them, you might send them an email asking if they plan to get a Google+ account because you would like to include them in your circle. People like to know you are interested in them. When someone is in one of your circles, you can see what they post (but they don't see what you post unless they add you to one of their circles).

You might wonder why I suggested a circle called "Other Makeup Artists." The reason is that you might learn from them. If you check out the posts in this circle from time to time, you can read what other professionals in your business are thinking and doing. So find them on Google+ and add them to this circle. 

But how can you get the names of potential clients. Often a happy existing client tells her friends how great you were. Her friends may, on their own, find you on Google+ and add you to their circle. When you get the notification, you can add them to your Potential Client circle. But a more direct way would be to ask existing clients from time to time if they have any friends who are planning a wedding, and then add their friends to your Potential Client circle.

So what's Step 4? This is the fun part… and the useful one for your business. You get to check out the posts from each of your circles whenever you want. And you only have to view the posts from people in a particular circle. So if you're tired of reading about your family and friends, you can just see what your existing wedding clients are saying. Perhaps they might talk about an upcoming wedding of a friend which you can comment on and ask if they might need some help with their makeup. 

And you also get to post. It would be useful to send out a post from time to time talking about what you're doing. For instance, you might want to post a wedding tip to people in your Wedding Clients and Potential Clients circles. Your existing wedding clients may then share your post with their friends, and voila, you are beginning to be exposed to more potential clients.

When people read one of your posts, if they are interested, they can also see your profile which includes a link to your website and some description of your service. So create a big "circle" on the web: connect your website to your Google+ account and vice versa.

Good luck!

by Joe Seidler
www.internetmarketingsanfran.com

Google+ & Google Places - Can They Help My Business?

Can Google+ and Google Places generate more visitors to my business website? Yes.

GOOGLE PLACES:
This is the easiest to understand for a small business. When people search on Google for a local product or service (that is, they include a city name in the search), the results page usually shows a list of special listings along with a map with pins. These listings are Google Places entries. They typically are near the top of the Google search results page, often even above the normal organic website listings. So your Google Places listing can often be more important than website SEO in generating visitors to your website. And when you do create your Google Places account, follow the rules on this page:
support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en

GOOGLE+:
People often think Google+ is just a competitor to Facebook and they don't want another Social Media "thing" to worry about. But that's too narrow a view of Google+. Since Google owns the most powerful and used search engine service in the world, they have amazing influence. So to be frank, Google+ can improve your chances of being found on the web... and that translates into more business.

So what should you do if you have a small business that serves customers mostly in and around a city?
1. Create a Google Places business listing immediately. You may want to get the advice of a consultant to ensure you get the most benefit from this effort. The Google Places account is free.
2. Create a personal Google+ account using your own name. You will be able to include a link to your business website. Here again, it might be helpful to get some advice how to best use your Google+ account.

By Joe Seidler
www.internetmarketingsanfran.com