Local Search Factors

It's impossible to do a search on Google today with local listings popping up. This has been a real challenge for those of us in SEO but an opportunity as well. When I wrote the second edition of SEO Made Simple, I dedicated a number of pages to this phenomenon that we call local search. This is because of the tremendous impact local search has had on website traffic.

The good news is that you're not at the mercy of Google (a.k.a. Google Places) or other local search results. In fact, you can do a lot to optimize your local results on major search engines.
Here are some tips for making the most out of your Google Places and other local search results.

Please note that if you don't claim your Google Places page, Google will likely compile one for you, by bringing in information from Internet Yellow Pages, Yelp, localeze, and other sites. This is not ideal however because you want to control the information you are sharing with the world.

Focus on these factors:

1. Include your physical address. Make sure that it matches the city where you're located.
2. Manually verify your ownership of the company's Google Places page via the confirmation email.
3. Use the proper categories for your Google Places page.
4. Complete other listings online that Google will use to verify your local listing (ex: Internet yellow pages).
5. Include your address and local phone number, including area code, on your website. Be sure to render as text, not as an image. Google can't read what's inside images, only image tags.
6. Build inbound links to your Google Places listing in addition to your website. Treat your Places page as as a primary page that is deserving of inbound links.

A few things to remember:
When putting together your Google Places listing, there are a number of things to keep in mind. The first is to sure to publish information that is accurate and complete. I have seen that local businesses that take the time to fill out all of the information on the Google Places profile, even including hours of operation, tend to do better in local search results.

As is true with any optimization effort, focus on your primary keywords for local search. Generally, this might include your service type followed by city, town, or region. Keep in mind who your primary audience is and how they are likely to find you.

One effective strategy is to include the name of your service in your listing title. A great example would be Mikes Farmers Market instead of Mike's Market. This way, your listing will come up for searches focused on "Farmers markets" in the local area.

Reviews are very important to local listings. Even though many small business owners know just how important they are, rarely, if ever, do they ask their customers to help them out. If you want to improve the ranking of your local results, you must ask for and get positive reviews.

The last point I want to make is that if your business provides services versus your traditional retail shop, it might be beneficial to provide would-be customer with access to service areas on your Google Places page. Also referred to as "enhanced listings", the service area gives you many more options to enrich your listing. Additional features like photos, links, videos, etc. make your listing stand out. Google charges $25 per month for the advanced features but it could be well worth it.

Local search is not going away. Claim your Google Places page today at http://www.google.com/places/. Once you do, you'll be well on your way to improving local traffic. Even if you don't have a brick and mortar establishment, consider using local places to drive additional traffic to your website and create awareness for your business.

source: http://marketing-expert.blogspot.com/

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10 Top SEO Facebook Strategies

1. Decide on the Best Title for Your Facebook Page - and Don't Ever Change It

Choosing the right identity on your Facebook Page is crucial. For instance, if your name appears too spammy, people will probably be less likely to talk about it with their associates on their own page and more likely to conceal your updates from their Facebook feed. Secondly, don't give into the temptation to choose a completely common page title. Facebook's intention for Pages is that they legitimately characterize businesses and brand names, as well as stars. Recently, Facebook has been disabling updates for common Pages.

The bottom line: Work with your corporation's true title as the name of the page and when you choose your Page's name, don't alter it. Facebook makes use of your Page name in the title of the Page, and considering that Google dings webpages when their particular titles change, changing your Facebook Page's name can cost you SEO points.

2. Select the Very Best URL for Your Facebook Page

Facebook recently provided the flexibility to choose a title for your Facebook Page, just about the most important SEO option on Facebook to date. Facebook wants Pages to legitimately stand for the identities of businesses. Brand names with commonly used titles have had their rights suspended previously.

The soundest solution would be to decide on a username which authentically presents your online business or company. As soon as you select a Facebook username/URL for your Page, it cannot be altered. So, look for a username you are going to be at ease, and satisfied, with for the future. If you have a company that specializes in replica watches, make the URL something to do with replica watches.
New Facebook Marketing Update

New Facebook Marketing Update

3. Use the "About" box to Place Key Phrase-Thick Content at the Top of the Page

One critical SEO approach that needs to be utilized in your Facebook Page whenever achievable is inserting key phrase-thick content as close to the top of the Page as it can be. Since Facebook restricts exactly where Page managers can place substantial sections of textual content on the Wall of Facebook Pages, the "About" box basically is the best location in the CSS structure of the page to incorporate custom content. You will find there's 250 character restriction, so choose your words and phrases sensibly.

4. Use the "Info" Tab to Add Extra Critical Key Phrases, Content, and High Precedence Backlinks on Your Page

Facebook creates an "Info" tab for each Facebook Page which has fields made up of important illustrative data about the Page. It's imperative that you complete all these fields, for the reason that they provide the option to add keyword phrases, content, and hyperlinks that may improve the content material rating within your Facebook Page for many kinds of Google queries. The specific fields existing could differ based on the type you choose for your Page whenever you create it, so pick out the class which most effectively meets your business needs.

5. Develop "Static FBML" Boxes and Tabs to Place Lengthy Content Material Plus More Static Backlinks on Your Page

While chances to place substantial blocks of textual content on the default tab of the Facebook Page tend to be quite restricted, Facebook enables Page managers to set-up supplemental boxes or tabs which could carry any type of subject matter, including text, images, and hyperlinks. Adding content boxes or tabs to your Page could be a terrific way to supercharge the score of your Page.

6. Publish Direct Backlinks Aimed at Your Website Inside Your Page's Stream

Status updates provide a highly effective solution to place direct backlinks at the top of your respective Page. Since Google boosts ranking for webpages which link to relevant internet sites - and penalizes pages which link to irrelevant web pages or that add a great number of inbound links too suddenly - posting hyperlinks in status updates can be quite an effective and reliable approach to better rank your Facebook Page.

You can find 2 methods to submit hyperlinks:

a. Including the URL within the text of the status update itself.

b. Using the "attach link" function.

7. Add Pictures with Captions, Activities with Descriptions, and a Conversation Discussion Board

This almost goes without saying, yet it's crucial that you regularly spread useful subject matter on the Facebook Page, along with always making use of all offered illustrative fields on every single kind of content shared. When posting images apply lengthy and key phrase-thick explanations. Use the resources Facebook provides for your entire gain.

8. Create Inbound Links to Your Facebook Page from the Internet by Posting Backlinks to Your Page on All Your Websites

Just as a good number of inbound links from high-authority web pages can help improve PageRank for regular internet websites, acquiring inbound links for your Facebook Page may improve its PR as well. You can accomplish this with text backlinks, but Facebook has also developed a badge which it encourages Page managers to utilize.

9. Get Intra-Facebook Inbound Links by Simply Acquiring More Facebook Supporters

The more fans you get, the more backlinks you will have to your own Page inside of Facebook. For Pages with thousands of supporters, the volume of backlinks mounts up.

10. Reinforce Intra-Facebook Linking by Getting Followers to Review and Like Content in Your Stream

Whenever supporters comment or like content in your Facebook Page's stream, Facebook links their name back to their own Facebook profile page. Subsequently, once the profile stubs of those supporters who've put up feedback and likes on your Page are listed, Google will discover more reciprocal links between your Page and your Page's followers, which it will see to be a much better relationship. This results in a cycle of enhanced link weight from the listed profile page stubs to your Page.


By Nina Hirasawa (c) 2011

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Don’t Make These Typical SEO Mistakes

In order to rank well with the search engines, you will need to get your basic SEO correct. It is similar to article marketing. Not only you need to have a lot of articles to market your business, these articles MUST be unique as well. Instead of writing a lot of articles, why not put your effort in writing a spinnable article? In The Best Spinner Review, you will learn how it is done.

Use Search engine optimization as an effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website, regardless of what category it belongs to. On a regular basis you need the right kind of visitors to your website. For effective promotion of your site on the internet you need to make sure you are focusing your efforts on search engine optimization. In the starting stages you need to use search engine optimization.

The first and primary thing is that anything you do that is correlated with SEO makes it vital for you to be unfailing in your efforts. It is a blunder to be under the impression that SEO is just a onetime effort. Acquiring a website that has a ranking according to the targeted keywords could potentially take weeks or even months, dependent upon the rivalry. If you aren’t unfailing then reaching a higher level can be really challenging because it makes it essential for you to put in hard work and commit yourself to it. Even after acquiring a decent category, you’ll still need to exert yourself to maintain that category. It’s not actually all that uncomplicated, though at the same time it’s not real strenuous if you’re taking step toward reaching your goal each and every day. If you’re trying to create a quality site that visitors and the search engines will like, don’t get your content using automated tools. One internet trend, loosely known as auto-blogging, allows you to instantly fill your site with a variety of content by using various plug-ins and software programs. You may have an impressive amount of content by doing this, but it’s not the kind that the search engines will rank you highly for, and in many cases the opposite is true. So rather than waste your time with automated content, take the time to make your site truly valuable by using original content.

Make sure the code on your site is properly optimized and not cluttered or confusing. The search engines will have difficulty with any code that’s awkward or complicated, and this won’t help them rank your site well. Try to stick to programming your site by hand rather than using an HTML editor, as these tend to place excessive code on your site. If you’re not a programmer, make sure you hire one to ensure that your website is clean internally. Keep the preceding tips in mind as you conduct your SEO campaigns so that you don’t make such mistakes. If you’re not sure if something related to SEO will work, you may as well try it (so long as it’s not something that will get you into trouble) and find out, as that’s one way to learn. Pay attention to the latest SEO news, as you want to be aware of new developments you can use, and in search engines’ policies. Since SEO is such a powerful way to get quality traffic to your site, you should do whatever you in this area, and your knowledge will increase as you practice.?

Article marketing is a form of SEO for your online business. Once you have experienced the power of the best spinner, the ranking of your website will continue to rise and you might not need the best spinner bonus to convert your sales!

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Find Interesting Topics for Your Blog Posts

Setting up a blog these days is an easy task, but the problem lies on how you can maintain it. Here are some of the things that you can do in order to generate new topics for your blog, so you’ll always have new content to add to your blog.

Go to an event and talk to people who think like you do. This is a sensational way to get topics for your posts because they have a lot of people and activities going on. You can basically ask others to share their ideas with you. Just sit down with them and talk about your current blog.

While have a conversation about your blog, ask them what they find appealing and what they want to see in future blog posts. Have a look through relevant magazines and major newspapers. There are lots of news stories that are relevant to your audience and you can show them the effects it will have on them. Simply analyze major trends and you will soon find people will consider the information invaluable and will come to your blog more and more. You can get more out of the news by asking and answering questions such as "What effect will this have in the future?" and "What isn’t being said?" Make your readers feel they are ahead of the curve by analyzing and making predictions based on the news you learn. Smaller publications can also provide good post ideas, especially if you are in a narrow niche. You can check out the expertise columns in local newspapers or weekly business publications. Since there aren’t many people who will have read this information, you are in the perfect position to get new ideas and publish a post about it. You won’t have much trouble writing up a blog post on these topics because they are usually great for recycling.

Why don’t you just go ahead and talk to a friend to get ideas for your blog posts? You can brainstorm with your friend and get new topics out of thin air. One way that can lead to some interesting and useful ideas is by focusing on the problem that you want to address. You can go ahead and do an interview with someone in your niche. Get in touch with possible interviewees that would be interested in contributing to your blog in the form of an interview.

There may be writers out there who want to contribute interesting topics to your blog; you can ask them questions so you can come up with new ideas. If you think that interviewing people isn’t effective, you can join a blogger’s group and look around for ideas. When you join such a group, you’ll be asked as to what you’ll be posting on your blog, which will force out new post topics. Apart from that, when you hear what the others are blogging about, it will give you a surge of new ideas that you could cover on your own blog. Thinking outside the box and doing your homework are the best things to do in order to come up with great blog post ideas that can even give you long term results.

So if you want to get new topics for your blog, you have to work hard for it by trying different methods. The ideas that we discussed can help you generate relevant topics for your blog, only if you take action. "This information was brought to you by http://www.eoptics.com/lafont.html, your source for all things related on lafont eyewear."

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