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Local Business Focus Online Can Boost Search Relevancy

Posted in: Blog, Content Writing, Google, Industry News by SpiderWriters on March 31, 2010 | No Comments

Let us help put your local business on the map. Spider Writers is a full service online marketing firm specializing in content and SEO writing for building your site’s visibility. Contact us today at 757-499-1990 ext. 104 for your free consultation.

In our work, we assist a number of local B2B and B2C companies with their overall search health. When one has to compete with several businesses for the top result under, say, “Virginia Beach home improvement” or “Norfolk real estate agent,” it can turn into a virtual fist fight. One can optimize specific keywords on the main site, blog and tweet and distribute articles linked back to the main URL, and you will see some improvement – how you fare on page one, however, depends on a number of factors. In addition to all this work, we strongly suggest taking advantage of local business listings.

Whether you have a physical retail location, or a headquarters for your online concern, it’s important to have your information confirmed with sites like the Google Local Business Center, Yahoo Local Listings, Yelp.com for services and UrbanSpoon and the like for restaurants. While you might find on certain sites your listing is available – but needs only to be “claimed” by an owner or manager – taking the time to manage and enhance your listing can boost your visibility in search results. With review-based social networks, you have the added advantage of blended search paradigms to have your optimized listing called up, and regular monitoring of such pages can assist with mediocre or negative reviews, and hopefully establish your business as one that is concerned and ready to listen to consumers and clients.

Dress Up Your Profile

With Google Local Business and Yelp, for example, one can add photographs of the business to give customers a better idea of what to expect. Google Local also allows you to set up coupons as incentive, while through other social networks you can advertise specials as people find your pages. Have visitors print your page for a discount, for example, turning your network into a coupon itself.

Taking control of your online business profiles lets you clarify hours of operation, address and phone, and web URLs. The more you monitor your pages, too, you can get on top of bad feedback and soothe any raw nerves in a timely manner that gets noticed, not only by the plantiff but others who view your profile.

Direct People to Your Profiles

You might wonder how useful it is to direct visitors to these social and search profiles rather than your main site or blog. Fact is, should these pages show up in search before your official sites, potential customers and clients will see that information first. If you know there are people ready to praise your work and products, encourage them to visit these profiles and post their opinions. they more made available gives newcomers a basis for trying your services.

Once you have control of your name online, you can move into controlling the success of your business.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media optimization and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels, European hotels, and Virginia web design firms.

Breaking Down the (Google) Buzz, or Do I Really Need This?

Posted in: Blog, Google, Social Media by SpiderWriters on February 11, 2010 | 1 Comment

Need help taking the guesswork out of Google Buzz and other social sites? SpiderWriters assists businesses and non-profits with proper social media marketing via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and now Google Buzz. Contact us today at 757-499-1990, ext. 104 for a free consultation.

What’s the best way to annoy a novice social media marketer? Introduce one more thing for them to master. In this line of work, one may spend hours upon hours training an entrepreneur or marketing manager to learn the finer points of building and maintaining social profiles in order to achieve high online visibility and, one hopes, an increased customer/client base. With many business owners we encounter, many are peripheral users of Facebook and Twitter – they know these sites exist, and maybe have logged once or twice, but they do understand their importance in new media marketing and work to utilize them correctly.

Of course, in the Internet world, things move forward. Just when you think you’ve learned everything you need to know, along comes something like Google Buzz and you’re a student all over again. If you missed all the “buzz”, for lack of a more original term, about Google’s latest social networking venture, Google Buzz is poised to compete with the likes of Twitter and similar micro-blogging platforms while allowing for integration. Right now, it appears Buzz is designed to accept feeds from your Twitter, Flickr, and blog accounts, and tech folks are working furiously to add Google Buzz buttons and tools to their blogs (ClickOnf5.org has a WordPress plug-in ready to go) while everybody else settles in to determine if signing on to one more social network is worth the time invested.

If you already use GMail for business or personal correspondence, you have the advantage of a quicker setup than others who aren’t registered. As you initialize activity and explore your options with Buzz, you may find you aren’t immediately deluged with followers. That’s okay – very likely when you signed on to Twitter and Facebook that wasn’t the case either – but with Buzz you do have the added advantage of possible connections with your current Google mail contacts. As each of them sign on to Buzz, you stand a chance of building a following in a more timely fashion.

How does Google Buzz work? Basically, once configured a colorful icon appears under your Inbox link in GMail. Clicking through takes you to a feed of posts by the people you follow, with a status box above for you to post news, links, etc. Clicking on the Connected Sites option allows you to integrate your Twitter, Picasa, and other select accounts into Buzz, so every time you tweet or post a photo it shows in your feed. If you have not already configured your Google profile, it’s best to do so now if you want to maximize the benefits of Google Buzz.

In your profile, you can offer as much information about yourself as you wish, everything from a spiffy avatar to work contact information to little known revelations about yourself like your personal “superpower” (mine is thinking of a particular song, then turning on the radio to hear it playing). You can also add links to every single website and social profile you own, and truly create the virtual calling card. Once that’s complete, you will have another URL to display with the rest of your social profiles (marked as http://www.google.com/profiles/[your GMail ID here]) and since it’s also available in a feed you can implement the RSS into a blog, your Twitter account, or create a handy widget for display online.

Do you need Google Buzz? Will it become a force in social interaction, or just one more thing that spikes in the first month of use before the novelty fades? Critics have already said their peace on the platform, calling it “too little too late” when Yahoo has had something similar out for a while. Nonetheless, as Google shows no signs of fading there may be something in Buzz that’s of use to your social marketing strategy. Depending on your existing number of contacts through mail or Google Friend Connect, Buzz may make updating to this set audience easier, and in turn go viral to bring more followers.

For now, integrate what you have active into the system. The more you “buzz” around, especially as the overall network of users grows, you might find it’s worth adding to your marketing schedules.

Kathryn Lively is a social media specialist assisting clients with social media writing and travel social media services. Clients include Gainesville hotels, European hotels, and Virginia web design firms.