With the recent exposure of the Search Engine Optimization tactics used by a SEO company working on behalf of J.C. Penney, many small business owners are left to wonder what tactics and techniques their SEO company has used to improve their search engine ranking. Google, the 800 lb gorilla in web search, is quite clear regarding what they consider to be best practices and warns against paid links and “bad link neighborhoods”.

Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist? Google Webmaster Guidelines

At the root of the issue is that the very same tactics that Google says to avoid, work, and sometimes, for now at least, they work very well. It’s easy to get caught up in the herd mentality, that everyone else is doing it, so I need to do it to be competitive. If creating hundreds or thousands of profiles on websites that link back to your site improves your search engine ranking and ultimately brings in additional business should you do it?  Some say yes. It’s certainly easier than creating content that real people actually want to read. There are several software products available that automate the registration process and spin descriptions of your site, often resulting in poorly written gibberish Of course if one of your customers comes across one of these they’d likely be puzzled and concerned about the professionalism of an organization that put out this type of content.

For example this content, and thousands of similar variations was put out on behalf of a well-respected chiropractor in order to improve search engine ranking:

Tracking suggests this tactic worked, the website is now in the top results, potentially resulting in more business. It’s unlikely this business will attract the same level of scrutiny that J.C. Penney did, however just as J.C. Penney’s rankings dropped like a stone when the story broke, widespread changes in the Google ranking algorithm to prevent this type of abuse could negatively affect this site and the thousands that have tried to game the system.

Do any short-term games make producing and publishing this type of digital detritus acceptable?

Recent statistics show that an large percentage of people search online before heading out into their community to shop or to call for local services. The printed yellow pages either gets tossed directly into the bin upon delivery or is used to prop up a computer monitor, o as a door stop or sits forgotten on a shelf.

While I recommend every business have at least a simple website or blog, my first recommendation is for local businesses to list, or update their listings, on Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp and so forth. Each listing is an opportunity for your business to appear in the search listings, resulting in clicks, calls, walk-ins, and most importantly more customers.

Getting Started:

Google Places
Yahoo Local
Bing Local Listing Center
Yelp
Localeze – provides data to many of the larger directories

Tips:
Search for existing listings before adding a new listing
Consistency matters – use exactly the same business name, address and phone format in all listings
Use a form-filler such as Roboform to fill in the forms
Don’t pay for featured listings or other upgrades, at least initially.

As a small business owner there is an overwhelming amount of information regarding internet marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization. It can be difficult to know where to focus your limited amount of time or marketing budget.

If I could only read 5 marketing blogs, and make decisions based on their input, these are what I’d read and who I’d listen to:

1. John Jantsch – Duct Tape Marketing Learn to do more with less.

2. Small Business Trends – An award-winning online publication for small business owners and entrepreneurs

3. Google Webmaster Blog – Get information directly from the source

4. Mashable - The volume of information can be overwhelming, but if it’s happening online, Mashable’s got the info.

5. Vertical Response – Focused on email marketing

Now what? Your small business is on Twitter but what in the world are you supposed to say? Here are some ideas for when you find yourself tongue-tied.  Remember: everything in moderation. If your Twitter stream is endless promotion or get too personal in your updates you will alienate some of your current and potential customers.

1. Share a holiday or other special promotion
2. Give a coupon to your Twitter followers
3. Let your followers know when you update your blog or website
4. Tweet news or articles you find online. This is easy using a bookmarklet such as Sharaholic for Firefox
5. Share from Facebook or other social networking sites
6. Retweet and comment on other tweets
7. Ask and answer questions related to your product or service
8. Announce a new product or service
9. Bring a human face to your business by sharing a little of your personal life (not too much!)
10. Quotes -  If you don’t have anything to say borrow some words from a famous or soon to be famous person.  Quotes must be 140 characters or less.

These are some of my favorites:

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” ~Will Rogers
“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching” Thomas Jefferson
“Stay committed to your decisions, but stays flexible in your approach” Tony Robbins
“All great achievements require time” Maya Angelou
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten” Tony Robbins

In small towns and large cities all across the nation, Local SEO experts increasing profits for small businesses in every category. How? By optimizing their websites to show up on the first page of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing and other popular search engines across the internet. An increasing percentage of people search Google for almost all of their products, services and needs. With that said, you can see why making businesses show up on Google for certain search terms can increase profits. By achieving an organic Google search result for multiple results a website can get many visits per day from targeted customers who are searching for exactly what the website is offering.

If you have a business, you need a website. If you have a website (or once you do) you are going to need people to visit that website. However, someone looking for car tires is not going to care much about your tax preparation website. That’s where SEO comes in. A website needs to be “keyword optimized” so that it can show up in relevant searches. Business owners can select to pay for PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising costs if they want to be a “Sponsored Ad” on Google, but that still doesn’t get nearly as much exposure as an all natural result and it costs more.

Contact City Media Consulting at (858) 386-4780 for more information about Local SEO and small business marketing.

* Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has:
* 55% more visitors
* 97% more inbound links
* 434% more indexed pages

Source

“86% of local searchers follow up with direct contact and 61% of those make a purchase. As a small business owner, that means you can no longer afford to take your chances with mailers or phone book ads that may or may not be working.”

Source

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