SEO, Social Media, Internet Marketing

Locals Rule! Surfing Your Business to the Top with Local SEO

When I was a kid growing up in Hawaii, I loved to surf. Because I was a kid and could surf, I was admitted into the �locals only� crowd and got to surf with the bigger kids. I wouldn�t always get the best waves and there was still a pecking order, but at least I was there, surfing and catching waves. Anyone familiar with surfing will tell you that the locals rule the best spots and unless you can rip or know a local yourself, you might not even make it into the water.

Compare this to the internet; if you�re a small business with a website, you had better be one of the best in your category, with solid SEO of your site and other sites (who you know) linking to you helping you rank high in search results, or you might as well be invisible. In organic search results, the first listing attracts 42% of the clicks. The second, about 12%, the third drops to 8%, and so on until you essentially cease to exist if you�re not returning page one in Google or other search engines.

Fortunately for small businesses, local search results are putting company websites that have optimized their listings for local search in front of the searchers who are actively looking for them. Optimizing your business for Local SEO will make your business listing more relevant for local search queries. With over 2.6 billion local searches every month, this can make a huge impact on your business. A lot goes into getting a top ranking for local search, but if you do nothing else, at least add your profiles for free to the following local search directories:

� www.google.com/local/add

� http://listings.local.yahoo.com

� https://ssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx

Every small business should be thinking about how to get their business found online in the communities they serve. Almost all searches have local intent and local companies can appear before organic search results, giving them a huge advantage when it comes to attracting more business. In the vast sea of internet websites, optimizing your business listing for local search may just be what you need to catch a few more waves of business.

Social Media 201 - The Rules are Engagement

I don't recall many industry conferences I've attended that I've wanted to remember, much less write about. However my attitude has changed significantly since attending Social Media 201, held at the Microsoft campus last week. The conference attracted a terrific group of presenters, panelists and an actively engaged audience tweeting sound-bites and asking questions, which is fitting given the theme.

Social Media 101 was all about set-up; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc., basically just establishing a profile. So the question for businesses after they've created these profiles is, "now what"? The answer: Engagement - Social Media 201 is all about engagement and strategy. Engagement is a slightly overused word but one that accurately describes the spirit of building relationships and having conversations with your audience. To illustrate what is meant by engagement through these channels, I've collected just a few of the memorable moments of Social Media 201 below:

� Professor Dan Rasmus (@DanielWRasmus) tweets all of his lecture notes. He doesn't have his students turn in journals, he has them post on Facebook and Twitter (with the recent announcement of Facebook and Microsoft's www.Docs.com, I imagine this will become commonplace very soon). Also noteworthy were his comments that "nobody understands the qualitative value of non-transactional technology (like Social Media) for marketing". ROI (return on investment) on social media can't be calculated like traditional IT investments; the ROI models aren't there yet.

� Eric Weaver (@weave) delivered a great presentation titled the Socially Powered Enterprise. A few highlights:

o Over 67,000 people join LinkedIn daily. 830,000 join Facebook every day (that is like the entire population of Seattle Bellevue and Kirkland, joining every day)!

o Don't ignore traditional marketing. Social media shouldn't replace, but rather augment, your marketing mix.

o Know your niche, know your goals, and know your resources.

It became evident to me during the live twitter stream and monitoring the conversation on my own, that Social Media and wine pair nicely. There were several wineries, distributors and enthusiasts in the audience. Connecting them all is Barbara Evans, aka SeattleWineGal. She seems to be at every event where great wine and food are served, so I encourage you to follow her @SeattleWineGal if you're not already. Joining her on the morning panel were Tac Anderson (@tacanderson), Heidi Miller (@HeidiMiller) and Shauna Causey (@ShaunaCausey). Notable moments from that discussion:

� Seattle is a leader in Social Media because of the early adopters and acceptance. Also due in part to our geeky nature. Shauna Causey adds "because of the weather� we have lots of time to be online!

� Customer engagement before selling. It's OK to take time to find your social media "voice". This is, after all, a conversation.

� Company goals should drive Social Media goals. Social Media is a means, not an end.

� Talk about other people way more than you talk about yourself.

� There isn't a quick fix for social media success. Authentic engagement with real people requires an investment of time.

� Don't just monitor, but engage in the conversation, even with detractors.

� The brands with the best stories win.

That last bullet really sums up the conference and what Social Media 201 is about stories. Listening to them, telling them, and making them a real part of people's lives. Several of the presenters have very compelling, very personal stories and their sharing them with the audience invited us in to know them as real people, not just the CEO of some company. That is the challenge for businesses; share your stories with your audiences, let them get to know you, even your quirks, and you'll find you have earned their trust. Then they'll want to get to know you and your business even more.

What is in it for me? Five Reasons to Start Using Foursquare

Foursquare is on track to be the number one social networking application available. They now boast over 750,000 users and that number is growing rapidly. However, the vast majority still don�t know what it is. Of my 400 or so friends on Facebook, Foursquare has connected me with a little over one percent of them. For the uninitiated, Foursquare is a location based game that has allows users to check in at your location to share with friends and also to earn points and badges. It is an application available to download for Blackberry, iPhone, Android and other mobile devices. Below are five pretty cool benefits of using this service.

1. Executive Privilege � Have you ever wanted to hold a political office? Get the most check-ins at your favorite spot and you just might be crowned with the Mayor�s badge, an even sweeter honor when you steal that crown from someone else. So it�s not exactly like a real position, but you�ll be thankful for that when you inadvertently unlock the Mayor�s badge at Spearmint Rhino. Also, your favorite venue may offer special discounts reserved only for the Mayor (If they don�t, you should ask anyway).

2. Get credit for your influence � At a recent wine tasting, one winery offered a clever way to waive the tasting fee; take a picture of their bottle and post to your Facebook page. $5 tastings can add up when you�re in a warehouse district of 30 or so tasting rooms, so I took it a step further and was checking in at every winery, broadcasting my whereabouts and their brand to over 400 Facebook friends and nearly as many twitter followers, earning points and saving some cash along the way. This has value to the merchants and I was close to unlocking the badge �Overshare�, but I think it drove some of my friends a little crazy.

3. Discover new places � This is one of the main attractions about Foursquare. When you�re out and about you�ll see new places you may have never known existed. It�s a great way to get adventurous but with the added bonus of reviews or �tips� left behind from others who have checked in there. Thinking of trying the new fish tacos at the 2:00AM curbside hot dog cart? You might want to see what other adventurers before you are saying about them. If one of your favorite haunts isn�t in the list of places, it�s yours to add and you get extra points for doing so.

4. Cyber stalk your friends � Who isn�t guilty of stalking their friends through Facebook? Now add another weapon in your arsenal of stalker tools; you�ll be able to see where your friends are and actually join in the fun - whether they like it or not. You have the option to announce your check-ins on your other social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

5. Meet new people � It�s inevitable that you�ll eventually check into a place and see that someone else checked in just before you. Maybe that�s enough of an opener to meet someone new and interesting. There is also a Foursquare Day, April 16th. If you�re headed out for a night on the town, why not attempt to earn the �super swarm� badge at the same time. Foursquare Day Seattle is on April 16.

Click on How to Unlock Your World with Foursquare for a quick video overview on getting started!

Please leave feedback on why you use (or don�t use) Foursquare or any other location based services.

Is there really a Web 2.0?

When discussing website design I hear this a lot. "I want the site to look Web 2.0." All web designers know what this means and can identify visual aspects of a Web 2.0 website. Some enthusiastically discuss the options available (big bold fonts, lots of whitespace, sites with jQuery and Mootools scripting features, the list goes on and on) while others bite their tongues and stir at the improper use of the term. So why does the term Web 2.0 push so many buttons for so many people?

On one side you have the "design Web 2.0" folks who believe the look and feel of websites has changed so dramatically that a new era is upon us. Compare this to artistic periods where artists had such a collective change in brushstrokes or lighting that a new period (Baroque, Impressionism, Renaissance, etc) was created. Technology has now allowed websites to become much more fluid on the page. Javascript, ruby, ajax and other technologies are allowing users to interact with webpages like never before. Where there once was a static display of information, designers can now make the user's experience interactive, hence Web 2.0.

On the other side you have the "content Web 2.0" folks who believe that Web 2.0 is not a look or feel but rather an evolution that has transcended websites from dictorial, webmaster-run, Web 1.0, information placeholders to dymanic social websites where in Web 2.0, user generated content "is" the website. Facebook, YouTube, etc., would not exist without without user-generated content. While any webmaster can make a website Web 1.0, only a group of users posting content and reacting to that content can make a website Web 2.0.

In just a few Google searches I found crazy arguments with diagrams and charts and references for both sides to back up their stance. Some even say Web 2.0 is a farce, it's simply a marketing buzzword and there is no Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and there can never be a Web 3.0. It's funny to me that the label Web 2.0 is creating so much controversy but I guess labels typically do that. What do you think defines Web 2.0? BTW, I used Web 2.0, 14 times in this post.