Christine Churchill

If you are like most Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisers, finding new ways to improve ad performance is an on-going quest. If you are a local business doing paid search, there’s good news. Google now offers a technique that allows advertisers to use their local business data in a way that makes their ad stand out.

In this article, I’ll explain how to derive the maximum benefit from the local business data in your Google Places (formerly Google Local Business Center) listings. Read more

The answer matters!

It didn’t used to matter. . . back in the 1990′s. Everyone used email software on their computer. With the exception of AOL users, of course.

But now web email is very common. In fact, Comscore reported on unique user traffic for the US only to the big four email domains in July 2009:

• Yahoo! Mail attracted 106 million unique US users
• Windows Live Hotmail: 47 million users
• Gmail:  37 million users
• AOL Mail: 36.4 million users

That’s over 226 MILLION PEOPLE who can’t use your email link, since it “points” to an email software on your computer, not on a web service!

Use a web form for your visitors to contact you

A web form is easy to create and very functional for all your website visitors.

There are three parts to the web form:

1. the part the web visitor sees (like the image at the right)
2. the email sending mechanism (including spam filters and other validation processes)
3. the thank you message

If your web designer only gave you a link instead of a form, ask for your money back. They were simply being lazy! And cutting out 225 million people from being able to ask you a simple question!

I’m mad about this! I’ve seen too many websites latey that only have an email contact link — no form. And the web site owner wasn’t educated enough to know that this won’t work (unless you have a time machine and go back to the mid-90′s).

Be smart and use a contact form on your website.

Start compiling your media list by gathering the names of anyone or any company that might help you promote your business, products, or services. Collect as many names as possible — you can’t have too many!

Don’t be too selective — the unlikely contacts may refer you to others that can help you promote your business.

I keep all my media contacts in a spreadsheet, but use whatever works for you. I keep the following information about each contact:

• Priority (A/B/C)
• Type (Print/Online/Both)
• Publication or website
• Website
• Username/password
• Contact Name
• Contact Title
• City
• State
• Email
• Phone
• Interests (what is this contact particularly interested in?)
• Source (where did I get this name?)
• Notes (comment on how you met, mutual friends, anything else I want to remember)

I use a spreadsheet because it makes it easy to sort data in any way I wish.

Getting your media list started

In your spreadsheet, or whatever tool you choose to use (even pencil and paper – gasp!), start making a list of people and websites that might be useful to you in promoting your business. Don’t worry right now whether you have their name spelled correctly, or if you don’t have their contact information. This is a brainstorming session. You should end up with a quick list of anywhere from twenty to 100 contacts/organizations/websites.

Save your list (need I remind you?). Now go back and start putting in the details that you have for each media contact. Use the web to search out information you need.

Get a glass beer mug, or similar container, and set it on your desk. As you go through your day collecting business cards, thinking about people, being referred to people, throw all  the little pieces of paper and business cards into the beer mug. At the end of each week, empty the mug and put the information into your media list. Also use this time to organize and revise your list.

Keep updating your media list

Update your media list ongoingly, and keep it current. You might want to set time aside once every quarter to completely review the list, removing old contacts that have moved to new positions, and making sure the list is organized.

Now when it’s time to publish a press release about your company or products or services, you’ll know just who to contact!

Here’s how it works:

1.  Example: Say I want to search for marketers in the NYC area. This is what I would copy into Google.com

site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio* * marketing” “location NYC”

This returned 8 pages of targeted results.

2.  Example: If I would like to find recruiters in the Austin area I could use this search

site:twitter.com intitle:”on twitter” “bio* * recruiter” “location austin”

This returned 11 results.

From these examples, you can just play with the words behind bio and location to get different results. For example you could search for “PR” within “dallas”.

Hopefully you found this helpful enough to share with others.

This easy-to-read guide includes topics not generally covered, like “Advertise your Twitter Presence”, “Twitter Search with Google”, and “Get Mobile with Twitter”.

Read Getting Started on Twitter now.

Google is always improving user experience, but this is their first major algorithm change in quite a while. Caffeine will significantly speed up Google’s results and will give more weight to website-specific keywords. Sites with content that has “aged” are likely to get penalized. Sites that have fresh, relevant content and that are linked to other sites with related content are going to continue to do well in the search rankings. Here’s a few things to consider for your website.

Does your content match your website’s message?

We’ve seen plenty of businesses that have “pretty” websites, but the content doesn’t lead the web visitor to take action.  Well written content engages the reader, encouraging them to take the next step in their relationship with you, and increases search engine rankings. Content should be relevant to your business and your website’s message. This not only serves your reader, but also helps the search engines rank you website more accurately and allows the search engines to present more accurate searches to your target market.

Is your content updated regularly?

To increase your ranking in the search engines, you need fresh content. This also helps your readers know that you are still taking care of your business. If you add content weekly, the search engines will begin to scan your website more often, looking for this new content. Right now, I’m getting new pages posted in Google within 15 minutes! You can do this, too.

Do you have high-quality outbound links?

An important change anticipated in Caffeine is the it will place increased importance on high-quality OUTBOUND links. These outbound links should point to websites that contain information relevant to your site.

For example, if you want to read more about Google Caffeine, click on over to TechCrunch.

Are you leveraging Google Local?

Google will continue to list local businesses that match your search query at the top of the page. So if you are marketing to a local audience, you really need to be listed in Google Local. We just became a “Google Local Favorite“, so talk to us about how to leverage this important resource.

Be Sure your web site is up-to-speed

To rank well on Google (with 64% of all U.S. searches), you need to revisit you website and make sure you have your content in order. At minimum, check for the following:

• Meta title and description for each page (unique for each page)
• Headers and subheads on each page use appropriate keywords
• Initial paragraph on each page uses appropriate keywords
• All outbound links (links to other sites) are relevant to your website content
• Website content is fresh and updated (regularly!).
• You have a Google sitemap on your site.

As Caffeine rolls out, look for a faster search with Google and more relevant results.

We’re already experimenting with this new feature and studying how you could use it to produce more qualified visitors to your website.

Social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr are here to stay. . . if you’re not taking advantage of these opportunities to reach out to your target audience, you should be!

In “10 Online Marketing Trends for 2010“, John talks about how to allocate your small business budget to maximize return on investment and minimize the risks of a low or negative return by analyzing the top 10 internet marketing trends for 2010 and telling you how (or whether)  to use this trend in your business.

Read “John Arnold’s 10 Online Marketing Trends for 2010“.

PrescottENews.com is an online newspaper that covers the activities, business, government, sports, education and upcoming events for the Prescott, AZ, area. Lynne started her online business just two years ago, and with diligent marketing and a lot of work, PrescottENews.com has reached this major milestone. Check out Prescott eNews, Prescott Arizona’s online newspaper.

In case you’re wondering, this is about double the traffic of the Prescott Chamber of Commerce and also about twice the traffic that the City of Prescott’s website gets!

Congratulations, Lynne!!

Great tips from Sarah Evans,  the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois.

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2008/11/04/how-to-make-press-releases-seo-friendly/