As part of your ongoing effort to increase your website’s visitors stats, it is important to include your business to Google Local. If anything, it helps your current customers find you quickly after typing your company name, but it is FREE! Be sure you include all of your locations.

Here is how:

1. Go to www.google.com/local/add. If you don’t already have a google account (such as a gmail or a google calendar), register for an account with google.
2. After logging in, search for your business address to see if your business is already there. If it is, there is a link  Google will ask you to enter things such as address, phone, fax, website, email address and description (see below)
3. If you do not, you’ll be asked to add a business listing.
4. Once google has located your address on google maps, you will need to fill out are the details about your business. Enter your hours of operation, a description of the products you sell, and your category(ies) to help people find you, visit your location, read reviews, and link to your website.
5. The final page will help google to verify that the location is truly yours. You have the option of either verifying your location by postcard or by phone. If you plan to verify by phone, make sure the phone line is open and google will have an automated message sent to your phone with a verification code. Verifying by postcard is much slower, but may be necessary if you utilize a call center. Once you receive the verification code, log into the Google Local Business Center and enter the verification code. Your business will become active after the code is entered.
6. From here you’ll be able to access reports on who came to your location listing and the actions they took, for example, from where did folks get directions?

Social Media Websites:

Social Media Tools:

• TweetDeck – www.tweetdeck.com
• HootSuite – www.hootsuite.com Manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Ping.fm accounts.
• Twitter Grader – http://twitter.grader.com
• Add blog to Facebook – www.ehow.com/how_2031202_import-blog-facebook.html
• Add blog to LinkedIn – http:/www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=1500
• Add Wordpess blog to LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/opensocialInstallation/preview?_ch_panel_id=1&_applicationId=2200
• GoogleWave – wave.google.com (Not live yet) Computing platform designed to bring together social networking, IM, email and wiki
• TwitterFeed – www.twitterfeed.com, add your blog entries to Twitter automatically.
• WordTwit – www.bravenewcode.com/wordtwit, add your blog entries to Twitter automatically.
• Social Mention- www.socialmention.com, real-time social media search and analysis.

Social Media Strategy:

• Mashable: www.mashable.com
• Hubspot: www.hubspot.com/
• Business guide to twittering : business.twitter.com/twitter101
• Business guide to facebook: http://www.facebook.com/advertising/FacebookPagesProductGuide.pdf

Blogging:

• WordPress: http://www.wordpress.com
• Blogger: http://www.blogger.com
• Moveable Type: http://www.movabletype.org
• TypePad: http://www.typepad.com
• TextPattern: http://www.textpattern.com/
• Review of Blogging Software: http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/blog-software-smackdown-review#

This is an important distinction to remember when building your website. Is your website allowing these savvy shoppers find what they need quickly? Your navigation should be clear and concise with no more than 2 clicks to get to the product or service of their choice.

35% of these adults are also saying that the internet is helping them do their jobs better. If you sell your product or service business to business, are you making it easier for them to contact you? Does your website give them the right resources like some frequently asked questions, product reviews, knowledge-base, job announcements?

But let’s not forget the group of people that don’t use the internet as much. According to the Pew Internet data, there a those , 17% who only use the internet several times a week, say that the internet has helped them do their jobs. Again, make sure that your website reflects a clear navigation and common sense content to ensure your target market knows what to do next when they come to your website.

Internet penetration has reached high levels. Many businesses refuse to acknowledge the need for a website at all. This may be the case for the rare few business segments, but not for the business owner wanting to reach the widest target audience.

From these pages, we register your website by uploading robots.txt and, if needed, a sitemap file. Below are the online tools that you can review yourself.

Google: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en

Yahoo: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Bing: http://www.bing.com/webmaster

1. Your website should be complete with no broken links, unique content, and keyword optimized.
2. Include a sitemap formatted with an XML extension and add to your webserver.
3. Add your site using the Google Sitemaps tools.
4. If you can, add a link to a site with PR (PageRank) of 5. I have been able to help my clients get indexed quickly by google by simply adding a link to their new site from my homepage which has a PR of 5.

Other notable ideas:

• resubmit your sitemap each time you make a dramatic change to your website.
• continue to add unique content to your website.
• Make sure that you utilize your specific keywords on each of your pages. Your title tag, description tag, and content should each reflect your keywords and phrases.

1. Google Local shows above the organic listings allowing your business to show at the top of the page.
2. Searchers looking for a specific location will more likely click on your business listing because they have purposefully entered that city or address.
3. Local allows you to enter detailed information about your business like phone, address, list any coupons or specials.
4. Your customers can review your business.
5. Websites linking to your site, and any pages indexed by Google, and any photos you’d like to show off.

To the left is a screenshot of my Google Local listing when searching “web designers richmond tx.” Because I have two phone numbers listed I show twice.

Which brings me to my next reminder, take some time and check your Google Local listing. Then claim your listing by clicking the “Edit this Listing” at the footer of the detailed page. Follow the instructions to validate your listing using a mail post or phone call.

Google and Yahoo! likes to see that you have labeled your page using these tags. They are part of the indexing algorithm and any text within these tags get a little extra weight. Be sure to use your chosen key words within the title naturally. It makes no sense to have more than one <h1> on a page for instance.

“David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, predicts that online ad spending will grow by 28.5% in 2008, compared with 26.8% in 2007. eMarketer also projects that US spending on paid search advertising will increase by 27.5% in 2008, compared with 26.8% in 2007.”

eMarketer predicts a growth in online ad spending, specifically pay-per-click. They see it reach its peak growth in 2008 with 27.5% increase. It then dips in 2009 to 17.6% until in 2011 to 11.3%. Other online spending areas included video, referrals, classifieds, display ads, sponsorships, and email. All peak this year and suddenly drop next year and continue.

I believe this shows the SEM industry is leveling and normalizing.

But, hold on there, ZenithOptimedia predicts a much sunnier horizon. They are predicting record growth. They are saying…

• Online ad spend will overtake radio by 2008;
• online ads will make up a double-digit share of all advertising by ’09
• it will surpass magazine advertising by 2010.

I don’t agree with the first and last predictions, as Google has added their new advertising segment within adWords, advertising on the radio and print. I do agree with item #2 but still believe that the spending will normalize over the next couple of years as interest in quick-results advertising and conversely frustration over managing it grows.

1. Google has the largest market share of U.S. based web searches at 64.49%

• 2007 September 63.55%
• 2006 October 60.94%

2. Yahoo is second with a market share of 21.65%

• 2007 September 22.55%
• 2006 October 22.34%

3. MSN is third with a market share of 7.42%

• 2007 September 7.83%
• 2006 October 10.72%

4. Ask is fourth with a market share of 4.76%

• 2007 September 4.32%
• 2006 October 4.34%

“Note: Data is based on four week rolling periods (ending Oct. 27, 2007, Sept. 29, 2007, Oct. 28, 2006) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users.”
Source: Hitwise – Dominance continues with a six percent increase over last year.

Top 5 Search Engines in the United States (The Majors) by Rank

• Google
  Yahoo! Search
  MSN Live Search
  AOL Search – Powered by Google
  Ask – Powered by Teoma