The word is out. Google has released their disavow link tool, the SEO world is abuzz, and now you’re paranoid, thinking you should do something about it.
According to Google itself, “The primary purpose of this tool is to help clean up if you’ve hired a bad SEO or made mistakes in your own link-building.” Continue reading
Contrary to what you may have heard, when it comes to small and local business marketing, Twitter is not for the birds. And it certainly is not a waste of time – as long as don’t become a social butterfly and you actually get down to the business of getting new customers. Let’s explore some ways to do that. This first blog on the topic will be on how to find your local prospects in Twitter first.
If you haven’t defined your target market, then you’ve been amiss because it should have been one of your first objectives when you started your businesses. So let’s assume you have that, and let’s say for illustration sake that you are a local vegetarian restaurant. Your target market then might be everyone within 5 miles of your establishment who might be health conscious or have heart disease, or who might be a member of PETA. How do you find them in Twitter?
The following is my gift to Kim Kennedy of Vacation Broken Bow Lake in appreciation for her generous donation to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Thank you Kim!
Good news. I’m seeing some things I did not see a couple of months ago when I first peeked at vacationbrokenbowlake.com‘s rank in Google. Back then for their main keywords, they only showed up in the PPC (pay per click) ads. Today, they are in tenth position in the organic listings (free) for “vacation rentals broken bow lake.” For “broken bow lake cabin rentals” they are in position 9. And interestingly, if you switch that around to “cabin rentals broken bow lake,” Google sees that as a local query and returns Place pages where Vacation Broken Bow is in position C and fifth on the page. Looks like the owner Kim Kennedy has been applying some of the things she’s been learning by following the SEO pros in Twitter. Or maybe she hired out some help. Whatever the case, congratulations, Kim! Nice to see the improvement. Continue reading
This site audit freely given to Jen Jaciw in appreciation for your generous support of Team in Training and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society and Kat & Mouse’s ride around Lake Tahoe in support of the cause. Thank you Jen!
Lone Star Limousine runs their business in sprawling Silicon Valley and serves more than 26 cities. How does a local business serving local clientele get found in Google for queries on all those cities for all their services and keywords? Add to that the fact that there are literally hundreds of other businesses competing for that position. And then once found, how can they be the one that gets picked.
This site audit is my gift to Chrystal Bougon in return for her generous contribution to Team in Training and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society on my behalf. Thank you Chrystal!
This reminds me of when I was running for student body secretary. I guess was a born marketer and didn’t even know it.
One of my campaign posters was completely black except for big, white text that read SEX, and under that in very tiny white print it said, “Now that I have your attention, vote for Kathy for secretary.”
It worked because during the lunch hour on the first day I posted it, a crowd of students flocked around it. Problem is, it offended the janitor so he took it down and gave me a tongue lashing. But I had already accomplished my goal, i.e., get attention.
You’ve heard it over and over again. You need links on other sites pointing to yours to climb in Google. And that in turn gets you seen and then brings you customers. And you’ve heard SEOs state over and over again that a great way to get those inbound links is by sponsoring a non-profit, an event, or your community’s little league, for example, because typically those organizations will list you as a sponsor on their website along with a link.
If you know SEO at all, you know that you can increase the power of your link juice in the following ways:
I’m bummed. I had a client who probably spent an hour writing a glowing review at Yelp about what I did for his business with my KickStart consultation program. It was a full page filled with all the details of how I helped him and the embarrassing results he got – embarrassing because he commanded 8 positions on the first page of Google. He was aglow and went on and on and on. It was the kind of review that every business wants to get.
Sadly, I’m guessing that Yelp considered it too good to be true, so they removed it. That’s not all that uncommon. They do it in an attempt to keep out spam, but too often they are over zealous.
I don’t want that to happen to you, so I want to share two pieces of advice with you and give you a REVIEW TOOL for FREE that might help you get and keep the great reviews you deserve.
Just when I thought I was done, Myles Anderson posted this absolutely great research over at Searchengineland.com on how the Google Panda updates have impacted the traffic on yellow page sites, and I can’t keep silent about it.
(Notice I have not capitalized “yellow page” there. If you read Part 2 of this series, you’ll know why.)
I hope you read that post in its entirety, but I also know most people aren’t as nerdy as I am to even care for that many numbers and that much explanation, nor do they have the time, so I’ll summarize here for you with some important takeaways on what it means for your local business.
I just got this on my Facebook wall:
“Hi Kathy, you are my resident expert…I am trying to increase the audience of my new blog, Stepford Husband, do you have any tips or suggestions?”
If you haven’t already, read the prologue to this post. If you don’t want to bother, then here’s a bit of info to set the stage.
In that post I showed how chiropractors in Scotts Valley were just about rendered invisible because Google bestowed a “Site Links” blessing on another chiropractor in town for the query “Scotts Valley chiropractic.” Dr. Hinde, though in position 2, looked like a mere mortal, while Dr. Thibodeau apparently achieved sainthood. On other queries, though, all chiropractors appeared to be on an equal playing ground, yet Dr. Thibodeau still reigned supreme.
This post answers the question, should Dr. Hinde in position 2 for the more popular and lucrative keyword “chiropractor” try for position 1? He also commands the first THREE positions for “Scotts Valley chiropractic office.” Is that enough?
And what about the other chiropractors further down the page and on other pages? Is it worth their time and investment in SEO to try to improve their rank in Google?
Kat & Mouse Co.
Email
408.647.2327
14567 Big Basin Way, STE C1, Saratoga, CA
(hop, skip, and a jump to either Los Gatos and San Jose)
Our Santa Cruz hotline: 831.419.9854
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