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31 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
A Small Business Marketing Success Story: K9cuisine.com I spent a lot of time in the Q&A asking company president Anthony Holloway about the use of product ratings and reviews on their site. Why? From an SEO perspective, because retail sites often struggle with creating unique content on product pages, and reviews can help solve that issue. From a usability/conversion perspective, because reviews help shoppers decide what products to buy. There’s a question ...
30 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
Traffic Marks helps you locate authority sites — sites that would make good places to acquire links. You supply a keyword and it grabs the Top 10 sites in Google for your keyword, and it crawls those sites’ first 100 +/- backlinks (I assume from Yahoo Site Explorer) to find sites/pages that link to the Top 10 most often. Here are ...
29 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
29 Jul This post is from from my other blog here “GroupThink” is where I turn the blog post over to you. Let’s say you work for a large company with multiple departments, and each department controls its own section of the site. You’re the new SEO guy/gal, and the Marketing VP is afraid of what you’re going to do to the site as a whole. Rather than let you loose on optimizing everything, they tell you, “For starters, we’ll give you one page to optimize. Depending on how it goes, we’ll let you optimize others later.” What page do you choose? Comments are open! (Granted, I’m not telling you if this is ...
29 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
We’re doing business in an era when search engines appear to be putting greater value on blogs and user-generated content; when customers are more likely to trust the unfettered comments of their peers; and ...
28 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
28 Jul This post is from from my other blog here Simon Heseltine starts off the week with the story of a friend of his who recently paid $1,750 for “SEO services” that included:
You might guess this happened in the real estate industry. And you’d be right. Here’s the full story: SEO Scams & Snake Oil Salesmen I’m not sure we need more evidence that Real Estate SEO is a Joke, but if only one real estate agent or other small business owner reads this and learns to avoid the same thing in the future, it’s worth a 5-minute ...
27 Jul This post is from from my other blog here Sunday’s are supposed to be a day of rest. And maybe that’s exactly what you’re doing right now. But if you’re looking for something to do today, here are a few suggestions: 1) Subscribe to the SBSM feed. 2) Add SBSM to your Technorati favorites. 3) Check out my current advertisers: the Pro Marketers Group on LinkedIn and the search engine optimization tool, SEM Check. 4) Add a review of SBSM on StumbleUpon. 5) Make a connection with me on Twitter, Yahoo Answers, Mixx, StumbleUpon, or LinkedIn. (matt-at-smallbusinesssem.com) That wasn’t too exhausting, was it? This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.
25 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
23 Jul This post is from from my other blog here Sometimes smart marketing involves nothing more than keeping your eyes open and seizing an opportunity when it arrives. That’s what happened today in my hometown. Here’s the story: Bounce Arena, a popular small business that hosts kids’ birthday parties and similar events recently shut down and left some parents in the lurch. Parties had already been scheduled and deposits were paid before the business shut down. This story was in today’s newspaper. Within a matter of hours, another local business, Garland’s Gymnastics, stepped in to fill the void. They emailed our local newspaper and offered to host the birthday parties and ...
23 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
And that’s not all! If you come out for SES San Jose and attend the final day, you’ll also be able to hear me chat for a few moments on the Fast, Free and Easy Tools to Get You Going panel, which is part of the “Just the Basics” track for beginners. SES San ...
22 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
22 Jul This post is from from my other blog here If you do real estate in Richland, WA — and I just happen to know someone who does — you could buy your way to the top of both Google and Yahoo. Today. For a killer search term. Have a look at the SERPs for the phrase [richland real estate]: on Google … and on Yahoo: 
The same site ranks at number one on both search engines, and also happens to rank at number three on MSN Live Search. I’m not going to link to it, but here’s a screenshot of what it is: A domain for sale owned by a real ...
21 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
21 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
Books are written about these concepts. But it’s much easier said than done. Many small business owners struggle to do things that will get people talking about them. Buzz/Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t one of the primary 15 blocks on the SEO Success Pyramid, but it plays a vital role helping your business move up the pyramid and complementing your other marketing efforts. What does positive word-of-mouth do for you?
20 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
18 Jul This post is from from my other blog here For those of you who are new SBS readers & subscribers, here’s a list of noteworthy posts you probably missed from one year ago. I try to put together a post like this each month to introduce new readers to old content that might be worth reading.
SBS Flashback: June 2007 SBS Flashback: May 2007 SBS Flashback: April 2007 SBS Flashback: March 2007 SBS Flashback: February 2007 SBS Flashback: January 2007 SBS Flashback: December 2006 SBS Flashback: November 2006 SBS Flashback: October 2006 SBS Flashback: September 2006 SBS Flashback: August 2006 SBS Flashback: July 2006 SBS Flashback: June 2006 SBS Flashback: May 2006
Advertisement: Instant SEO audits for $12 or less. Single reports or subscriptions available. Save time and $$$. Learn more at www.semcheck.com. This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM.
17 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
16 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
15 Jul This post is from from my other blog here While waiting for AT&T to get its 3G network hooked up out here in the boonies where I live (really, it’s not that remote…) so I can buy the new iPhone, I’ve been collecting as much good information as I could find about the phone and, more specifically, the local search applications available for it.
15 Jul This post is from from my other blog here
14 Jul
14 Jul This post is from from my other blog here Apologies up front for a non-search-marketing post, but this is good stuff. Times are tough. We all know it. In my local newspaper, the past month has included a few articles about small businesses closing up shop because gas prices are high, people aren’t going to restaurants as much, discretionary spending is down, etc., etc., etc. On BloodHoundBlog today, Chris Johnson shares five things to help survive the current tough times:
The article is on ...
13 Jul This post is from from my other blog here There’s a boatload of evidence that shows the impact of consumer reviews on our buying decisions, and this research goes back several years now. Still, many businesses choose to ignore the conversations that are happening online. That, and some stats from a recent survey about the power of consumer reviews, are the subject of my first blog post for SEMClubHouse: More Evidence Shows Power of Consumer Reviews This reminds me that I’ve been thinking about doing a series on consumer reviews and user-generated content…. Advertise Here: Learn more at www.smallbusinesssem.com/advertise. This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM. Still Not Sure Consumer Reviews Matter?
13 Jul This post is from from my other blog here Weekends seem to be the time for me to post general updates about SBS, so here’s a quick note about advertising on this blog: Now that I’m working for a search marketing agency (KeyRelevance), it makes no sense for me to accept advertising from other search marketing agencies and consultants. Now that I’m limiting the pool of potential advertisers, I’ve also lowered the ad ...
11 Jul
10 Jul This post is from from my other blog here Random Thought: We’re about 1-2 years away from the day that video will be as ubiquitous on web sites as About Us and Contact Us pages. Agree/Disagree? This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business SEM. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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My most recent “Small Is Beautiful” column was published today on Search Engine Land — it’s a profile of an online-only retailer called K9cuisine.com. Here’s the link to the SEL column:
There’s no shortage of excellent link building in SEOville, and I’ve found another one to add to my own toolset. It’s called 
Never has the opinion of the individual been as powerful as it is today. One negative blog post or product review can spread online in a flash and change the direction of a company. Need proof? See Jeff Jarvis’ 2005 blog post, 
Psssssst. Shhhhhhh…… Did you know that you can get a 20% discount on your registration for Search Engine Strategies - San Jose just for knowing me? It’s true! Just 
As far as I can tell, no one has done a better job bringing together local search and the new iPhone apps than Greg Sterling, who today published a 58-page PDF called “A Survey of Location-Aware iPhone Applications.” The players you’d expect are there — ...