Google: Loving Generic Business Names

When yellow pages ruled the Earth, businesses used crazy names, such as AAAAA Plumbers – because when you’re listed alphabetically, not much beats quintuple-A. You can get around this to some extent by purchasing ads, as most books put the biggest ads first, but the regular listings are usually alpha. Now that we’ve entered the […]

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11 Ways to Make Your Small Business Site More Trustworthy

There are a lot of scams online. This makes people cautious. If they are going to buy from you, or give you their contact info, they need to overcome this caution. So you want to generate as much trust as possible. 11 Ways to Generate Trust A Decent Base – Anyone, even a scammer, can […]

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Sharing Buttons: Breeding Like Rabbits

In the past two days, Twitter has announced a Follow Button and Google announced a +1 Button. These come shortly after Facebook’s announcement of the Send Button in April. The 3 new buttons, of course, can be added on to the Facebook Like, Facebook Share, Google Buzz, Twitter Tweet, Stumbleupon, Digg, etc, etc, etc. They truly […]

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Don’t Let Your Accounts Be Held Hostage

Linda Buquet at Catalyst eMarketing recently posted a story about hundreds of Google Places listings marked “Awaiting Removal.” A commenter did some sleuthing and discovered that these listings appear to be held hostage by a company called 411 Locals (link to ComplaintsBoard.com). What Went Wrong This isn’t the first or last time we’ll see something along these […]

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Will Google Wallet Affect Your Business?

Google officially announced Google Wallet and new features for it’s daily deal site, Google Offers, today. They’re looking to go beyond e-commerce, and make big changes to how physical retailers and service-providers collect payments and offer deals. There’s a good chance this could have an effect on your business. What Is Google Wallet? Google Wallet […]

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Finding Local Citation Sources With Whitespark’s Citation Finder

One of the keys to ranking in local search are “local citations.” A citation is an appearance, anywhere on the web, of your business name along with its address or phone number. Google counts both the quality and quality of citations when ranking your business. To get started with gaining citations, check out my guide […]

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Using hReview on Your Website

Google scrapes reviews from other websites for Google Places. Traditionally, these came from large local review websites. But now you can get reviews from your site onto Places. Google is starting to include hReview formatted reviews from other websites – and even some from small businesses using hReview. Read on for an hReview how-to. What Is hReview? hReview […]

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Getting Started With Email Marketing

Email marketing is cheap and extremely effective. But there are plenty of areas where you can make mistakes. Read on for ideas as to how you could use it, and how do it right. What’s It For? Email provides a great ROI for many companies. They’re doing things such as: Bringing People Back – Email […]

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Who Should Manage Social Media Accounts?

You run a business. You’re busy. Handling your company’s social media presence takes time. So what do you do? The Problem Social media is still relatively new, and many companies don’t have anyone deemed responsible for it. No responsibility = it’s not done well, or even consistently. Some businesses haphazardly allow an employee to setup […]

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360 Degree Business Views on Google Maps

Google has just announced a new addition to Google Maps – the ability to see 360 degree views of the interiors at select businesses. First mentioned by Google as an upcoming feature a week or so ago, it is now live in the United States, New Zealand, Japan, and Australia. What Does It Look Like? […]

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