I did a short video on the basics of how to rank in Google places. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zfrXCdK_pYw Here they are in a nutshell. Your business name, address, phone number, and url all need to be the same  wherever you list them. Not just one your site and Google places but EVERYWHERE online, citysearch, superpages and the list... [More]

 I read the post aboutRand Fishkin's breakdown of Google's search Algorithm in 2009 and thought I would put a post together that would break this down a little moreso we can understand what Google's algorithm is like and what it means to SEO. I will try and make it easier than this. Rand is good at what he does and he is giving out this informationfor the rest of us to get a better understa... [More]

A question I am frequently asked is: “Why should I go through the effort of doing local SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?” I generally get peoples' attention with a few statistics. Specifically: - 97% of American Internet users also use the Internet to shop Of those, 57% characterize their behavior as "shop online, purchase offline" 80% of budgets are spent within 50 miles of the home... [More]

Keyword research is the one of the most important things you can learn how to do in any kind of online marketing efforts. If you don't know what your customers are searching for and, more important, what they are calling it when they do a search, there’s no point in having a website. A couple of easy steps to get you started are as follows: Go to Google Keywords ToolType in the generic name ... [More]

I was reading Local search ranking factors by David Mihm – it’s a great read if you get a few minutes. I tried to condense it down for someone who has never heard of “Google local” let alone pondered how Google would rank their site number one. The first thing I did was make this Excel spreadsheet about "Real estate agents Fort Wayne IN" so I could show how a site gets rank... [More]