Small Business Shift

I highlighted a survey yesterday that demonstrated the gains search engines are making versus other sources of local information. Today Google capped a week of announcements and changes that highlight its commitment to becoming the #1 source for information on local businesses. If Google’s success continues, it will be even more important to your business. […]

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 […]

As a small business owner, you’ve always had to know a bit about everything. It’s time to add online marketing. The goal of this article is that when you finish reading, you’ll have enough knowledge to read more in-depth guides (or talk to a salesperson) without ending up lost. There’s a lot of information here, […]

Google’s local ad options come and go all the time – in just the last couple years they’ve tried all of these: Google Tags Google Local Listing Ads Google Offers Google Location Extensions Google Boost The first two are discontinued, the third is in testing – just #’s four and five are widely available now. […]

Google is going to be gradually opening up “Tags” to the entire US. Tags is an advertising feature for local businesses, allowing companies to get a special marker next to their business location, for $25/month.

Updated 8/4/2010. In my small business online marketing guide, I mentioned that the #1 way to start promoting your company online is to claim its local listing on the search engines. For Google, this means setting up your Google Places page.

I was looking at some local searches, and came across a results page that looks odd. Searching dentist minneapolis mn brings up this page on Google: