Small business owners we talk to love to embrace the do-it-yourself attitude, so we thought it would be a good post to present the basics for do-it-yourself online marketing for local businesses.  We often here: “Why should I pay someone if I can do it myself?”  Of course, that’s usually if we had all the time in the world.  Unfortunately, Local SEO can become time consuming very quickly, especially due to the complexity of the fragmented local search market.  However, it is possible for owners to work on a little bit each month to improve their rankings on Google Maps for Local SEO, or improve their Yelp profile (Online Reputation Management) to reach new traffic, or add fresh content or a blog to their website (Search Engine Optimization) in order to improve their Google Search Rankings.  Part of the do-it-yourself marketing strategy is to prioritize your efforts based on what you’re trying to achieve and the amount of work that goes into each effort.  Many of our customers seem to ask a lot of the same questions, so we wanted to put together this list and prioritize it for those that are just getting started. Local SEO in the context of this article is the activity of updating your company’s business listings  and content (on both local search sites and your website) in order to improve your rankings on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, and other local sites and search engines.  After you have mastered, Local SEO, then you can start tackling Social Media Optimization (SMO), but that’s for another time.  Here we go, hope you’ve had your coffee today! Continue reading “How to improve rankings on google maps; Top 10 tips for Local SEO” »

As a small business owner, it can be difficult to keep up with the number of changes going on across all the different local sites, from Google Maps, Yelp, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Citysearch, …not to mention all the local sites in your town that keep changing as well.  However, in the last month alone, Google Place Pages has undergone a frenzy of important changes.  This posting will get you up to speed on what’s new and what you can do to improve your profile, increase your ranking on Google Maps and other local SEO strategies for the small business.

• Enhanced Listings
• Reviews added from local media, bloggers, and unconventional review sources
• Special Announcements and messaging

Continue reading “Google Enhanced Listings – January Updates” »