Posts Tagged ‘Local Online Marketing’

Local Business Resources

June 25th, 2009

What are some Local Online Marketing resources available for local and small businesses?

Domain? There are easy inexpensive domain registration options available.  My favorite is Godaddy.  Make sure you don’t buy into any of their other services, just stick with the $10 domain registration.  Make sure you register for at least 3 years.  This will tell Search Engines that you are in it for the long haul, creating valuable content.  Don’t use the private registration either.

Website? For a simple no cost domain, Google Sites is your answer.  If you want a little more control that just a web template, try Bluehost.  Expect to pay around $7-$10/month.

Email? I currently use and have used Google app mail.  For small businesses with less than 100 employees, it is a great solution.  Your mail will be unavailable a few times a year, but hey its free and all web based.  You don’t need to buy an email client.  Make sure you just do the free hosting, don’t pay for the premium service.

Web design/logo? The basic web design will be taken care of through your web hosting company.  However you probably need a logo created.  For a cheap do it yourself solution, logomaker.  It really does give you some nice designs.  For a more professional look, the sister website to logomaker is logoworks.  Expect to pay about $300 for a few designers to submit their designs.  You pick the best one and make changes as needed.

Business cards and letter head paper?  The two biggest players are logoworks sister site, MarketSplash and VistaPrint.   Do a search on the internet and you will find they offer free business cards.  They are both participating in aggressive competition.  You as a small business owner can take advantage of that.

Local Advertising? As a local business, the best resources you have are the local resources offered by the big three Search Engines.  Google local, Yahoo local and MSN(Bing) local.  This will get you the most bang for the buck.

And last but not least, Local Online Marketing?  There are many full service companies offering PPC (pay per click) and SEO(search engine optimization).  Typically for a local or small business, you don’t need these services.  There are also a lot of learn it yourself sites that I am sure you don’t want to spend the time, nor care to learn.

This is where I pitch our company, Boostability for local online marketing.  We give you the easy to use tools and resources to effectively run an SEO compaign.  We tell you what to do, how to do it and why.  No need to pay someone or take a college course to get yourself found on the search engines.

Does anyone else have any other resources that local and small businesses are looking for?

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Are there SEO best practices by Google?

June 22nd, 2009

Local Business trying to do their own Local Online Marketing are asking themselves the same questions. What are SEO best practices?  What can I do to improve my Search Engine Visibility on Google?

Although Google doesn’t publish a best practice guide, they do have a resource called “Webmaster tools”.   Within the help section there are a few notable sections ( Webmaster tools checklist and Webmaster Guidelines ) and a PDF document called Search Engine Optimization starter guide is available.

Before Google released these resources I think they really frowned upon companies helping other companies rank on their search engine.  They viewed it as cheating the system.  Granted there are SEO companies that do try to “beat the system”, but there are many that just help companies follow best practices.

Google should really embrace these types of companies, because they are helping search engines become more relevant.  I’ve recently read some articles claiming to be discriminated by Google because of what they do.   I can’t see why any search engine would do this as long as they are following their rules.   Are they unreasonable?  Maybe, but they are just trying to keep people from abusing the system.

At Boostability, we try to follow what we think would be Google best practices.   What are their best practices?  From their published document Webmaster Guidelines.  Here is a brief summary.

  • Website needs to be in a easy readable format for the search engines.
  • Structure needs to be easily followable for crawler.
  • Format content in a way the search engine can tell what the site is about.
  • Never buy or trade links.
  • Don’t spam with automated submit programs.
  • Automated queries checking ranking is a no no.

There you go, my top 6. :-)   Just a joke on my 1001 tips blog entry.

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1001 SEO Tips

June 14th, 2009

1001 SEO tips.

I really don’t have 1001 seo tips.  I thought it would be funny because there are so many search engine sites offering, top 10, top 25 and even top 55 seo tips.  Why I think it is funny, is because there really could be 1000 of tips.  So how can anyone really perform seo?   Do you really need to follow all these tips to rank on the search engines?

The quick answer is no.   Of course if you are trying to rank for mortgages or free ringtones, then you really need to follow every tip and then some.  What if you are the thousands of local businesses and even small businesses that just need to rank for restaurants in Lehi Utah.  Should this restaurant spend a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to a seo company to help him rank?  The quick answer is maybe.

You may be an owner of that restaurant that is really good at making garlic bbq pizza(my favorite), but doesn’t really want to deal with anything related to local online marketing.  Of course maybe he is on a tight budget and designed his own website and just needs a little help optimizing it.   There are a lot of self service top 1 million tip sites that he could go to, but will it really help him?  Quick answer no.

There is a need for inexpensive help with SEO without becoming an expert.   Google has made an attempt with “Google webmaster tools”.  Although they are not quite there yet, this is a really good resource for the small business owner and expert.

What about seomoz?  I love that site.   If you already know what you are doing, they are a great resource.  They have great tools and insightful articles.  Randfish also blogs about running a small business from startup, which I find fascinating.  But for this restaurant owner, it might as well be Greek.

There are a number of inexpensive self seo sites that are starting to pop up and disrupt the traditional seo world.  Will they actually fill this void?  Time will tell.  Boostability is one that hopes to.  We offer the first few action items for free showing the local business how easy it is to use their service.

Watch for Boostability and other sites in the coming months and give them a try before hiring a consultant.

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