Its now more important than ever for businesses to claim their Google Place, complete their company profile and ensure they have a well-optimized site with relevant, localized content to ensure strong visibility. Here are 10 things you can do to optimize your Google Place listing. Step 1 – Make sure you select relevant Place categories [...]

On February 23rd, Google released a search algorithm update dubbed “Farmer” (aka Panda) that affected some 11.8 percent of Google search queries in the United States.  This latest update was tagged “Farmer” because it impacted sites that specialize in junk content.  These ‘content farms’ flood the Internet with a never ending stream of low quality [...]

I am continually frustrated by how much misinformation there is out there regarding SEO. It seems like every week I have a client ask me about the latest tidbit they were told or read about. In many cases, the information is blatantly wrong and in other cases it is just being misapplied. Most business owners [...]

In it’s effort to continually provide better search results, Google is once again changing way search results are displayed for Local searches.  An example of a local search would be ‘plumber greenville sc’. Previously, Google Places listings (formerly Google Maps) were display in an abbreviated version next to a Google Map.  This week, we are [...]

I love this video from the NFL combine. Rich Eisen, the 40-something ESPN guy in the suit, probably thinks he still runs fast. Then you see Tim Tebow blow him away. Then, “here comes Jacoby Ford”. It’s a hilarious video but it also shows you how everything is relative. From a business perspective, no matter [...]

Google continues to add more enhancements to their local listings, i.e. Google Places, that give business owners more ways of making their listing stand out. After several months of testing, Google has officially rolled out an update that allows business owners to Tag their local results. Google Tag’s are yellow markers that allow business owners [...]

There are essentially three conversations taking place online today.  All three of these conversations should be addressed as part of your digital marketing strategy. The conversations are: SEARCH – Consumers SEARCH online. SURF – Consumers SURF online. SOCIAL – Consumers SOCIALize online. SEARCH represents a Consumer to Business Conversation. SEARCH is the #1 resource consumers [...]

Good, clean web design is one of the most important factors for site usability.  Every design aspect of your website should be understandable and clear to the visitor. Our attention spans are extremely sort when we’re searching  and  a good design doesn’t require visitors to think too much about navigating a site. Here are a [...]

Google announced this past week that their Local Business Center is becoming Place Pages.  Google Place Pages were launched late last year as another way for businesses to advertise and promote their businesses online. It only makes sense that the two have become one and it is now called Google Places. Now, you will be [...]

With a new web design, you can improve your search engine rankings drastically or you can lose all of it. The biggest risk is losing the value of your inbound links which usually point to specific pages. To make sure this doesn’t happen, be sure to include an effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) design plan [...]