Archive for June, 2009
How To Claim Your Google Maps Listing
by Miriam Ellis
A few day ago, a business owner told me about a rather complex problem with his Google Maps business listing and asked me what to do about it. My explanation was pretty long, starting with the need to claim his listing and ending with a warning that fixing errors in Google Maps isn’t always simple.
It took several paragraphs of detailed text to cover what I felt the business owner needed to do and he came back to me with a, “That’s great, but how do I claim my listing?” Sometimes, I get ahead of myself when I’m answering questions and in this case, I forgot for a moment that such a huge number of the business listings that make up Google’s local index are still unclaimed. Let’s get down to basics with this article. If you’ve been mystified by the verification process, read on!
Why Do You Need To Claim Your Google Maps Listing?
Important Reason #1 – Just as you keep careful tabs on the content you have published on your website about your business, you need to be in control of what content Google is publishing about your business. You may discover that Google has errors or blank spots in their data about you. The way for you to correct this is to let Google know you own the business, which I’ll describe how to do, so that you can officially edit the content of your business listing. Claiming your listing gives you improved control over how you are being represented by Google.
Important Reason #2 – Just like the rest of the web, Google’s local index is plagued with spammers and crooks. Unclaimed business listings are at risk of competitive hijacking. If you haven’t claimed your business listing, malicious parties can step in and alter its content for their own benefit – not yours. This has been an acute problem in Google Maps and your best defense is to lock down your listing by claiming it.
How To Claim Your Google Maps Listing
Step one is to go to Google Maps and do a search for your business. Let’s imagine we own K-Mart in San Mateo, California. So, we do a search for k-mart san mateo ca.
Unless your business is brand new, chances are it will have been indexed by Google already. So, all we have to do is click the More info link next to the business title, as shown:
This brings up the big popup to the right of the business listing. Click the Edit link, as shown:
This will bring up a second popup, this time a smaller one. In this popup, we see the question, Are you the owner? Claim your business:
Click that link and you will be taken to Google’s Local Business Center login page. If you already have a Google account of some kind, such as for gmail or Adwords, you can use your pre-existent login information to get into the Local Business Center. If you do not already have a Google account of some kind, you will need to create one at this point. Once you have logged in, you will be shown the business you want to claim.
Look carefully at all of the data in the listing! Are the address and phone number correct? Are the categories the business is listed in accurate? Are there additional details you could include, such as hours of operation, languages spoken or forms of payment accepted? Make sure the description of your business is as thorough and accurate as possible.
Once you have edited the data so that it is the best possible representation of your business, the Local Business Center asks you whether you would like to verify your changes to the listing by either phone or postcard. A phone call is the fastest way to go, but sometimes, the phone call doesn’t work because of weaknesses in Google’s phone system and you have to select the postcard route. In this case, Google will send you a small postcard containing a pin number that you need to phone in with when you receive it.
And that’s how you claim your Google Local Business Center listing.
Despite the fact that Google has given major prominence to their local search results in the Universal SERPs, they have done very little to alert business owners to the need to verify ownership of the listings. No one, that I know of, has calculated what percentage of the listings in Google’s local index are unclaimed, but pretty much everyone agrees the number is staggering. So, don’t feel badly if you didn’t realize you needed to take control of your listing. You’ve got the information you need to do it now.
Once you’ve got this initial, and utterly vital, task completed, you can work towards starting to win reviews from your happy customers and encourage citations from relevant websites. But that’s a subject for another post!
Check out our small business news site.
Tips from a recovering journalist: How to write effective press releases that help SEO
Posted by MikeK@DanconiaMedia
This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
It’s been said here before: Press releases are much less powerful than they used to be for SEO purposes. While churning out news releases and submitting them to free sites may not do much, the medium can actually be more powerful than ever if used right. Convincing a single reporter or high-profile blogger to pick up your news is infinitely more beneficial than posting worthless releases all over the place and Digg’ing and StumbleUpon’ing them with your multiple accounts.
I have a somewhat unique perspective about news releases. Not too long ago, I worked full-time as a newspaper reporter, and my inbox was regularly inundated with press releases. Some of them caught my attention and were turned into lengthy stories. Others, however, failed to captivate me or my peers and, as a result, went nowhere.
Here are some tips on how to craft your releases in a way that increases the odds of them getting noticed by the media:
Get to the point. Make it clear from the get-go what your release is about. Don’t try to be cute. I used to get releases all the time from PR people who buried the news or tried to get creative with their writing. Sometimes, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what some releases were even about. If you’re looking for a creative outlet, press release writing is not the avenue. Try writing a short story.
At least pretend you’re objective. Obviously, you have a vested interest in what you’re writing about, but it’s still important to craft your releases like down-the-middle news stories. Avoid unnecessary adjectives; most adjectives are unneeded. You don’t want your release to read like an advertisement. Pick out the newsiest element and concentrate on that.
Speak English. I see releases all the time that are stuffed with industry jargon that most people do not understand. Don’t assume that what you’re writing about is a familiar subject for the people who’ll read your release. Dumb it down. Assume your release will be read by the densest guy in the room.
Send it out manually. Instead of just dumping your releases into submission sites and hoping someone important notices, email it yourself to media outlets and bloggers you think might be interested in it. If you’re publicizing a new product, send your release to newspapers in the company’s area. If you can, find out which reporters cover the relevant beat and send it to them directly; that usually only takes a phone call.
Have good timing. If you’re looking for coverage, sending your release out on Election Day or after hours on a Friday is goofy. Those are good times to release bad news you’re obligated to report – any White House spokesman will tell you that – but it’ll do you no good unless your story is wildly sensational. News outlets are typically more desperate for copy during the summer months and around holidays.
Act like a human. Interactivevoices’ post about getting a link from CNN.com – the only PR10 news site – illustrated this perfectly. There’s no harm in picking up the phone and calling reporters directly to see if they’re interested in your story. For all you know, the only thing preventing your news from being published is an over-finicky spam filter.
Don’t beg. When I was working as a reporter, I didn’t realize why some sources were so hellbent on me including links in my stories. Now I know. If your link is relevant to the story, the reporter will probably include it. If not, you’re still getting good publicity.
Of course, all of this will only help if you actually have something worthwhile to say. If you think there’s nothing interesting to say about your enterprise, you’re probably wrong. You just need to think long and hard to figure out what it is.
How to Manage a School/Blog Balance
This post was written by Aditya Mahesh, founder of AMBeat.com, a complete resource for entrepreneurs complete with advice articles, start-up profiles, interviews, news analysis, and more.
Common wisdom suggests that academics are always chief in importance. Students, at least those here in the United States, are told time and time again that extra-curricular activities, whether it is a sports team or clubs, always come after academics. Student entrepreneurs and bloggers have a tendency not to follow this rule of thought.
Throughout my high school and college experiences, I have always been more dedicated to and more passionate about my business and my blogs than I have my schoolwork. I was recently going through my Algebra notebook from 11th grade and noticed that for every page of Math notes were three pages of business ideas, future blog posts, marketing strategies, etc. Still, while I always placed more emphasis on my business, I was always able to balance my work with my academics, allowing me to excel in both.
For those of you who are not students, the information in this post is still applicable for balancing a blog/work balance of you blog part-time and work at another job or a blog/life balance if you are a full time blogger.
The key to managing my business work and my school work is time management and planning ahead. It is absolutely vital that you do not procrastinate, because all procrastination does is lead to a great increase in personal stress and a great decrease in work output quality.
Throughout the course of my high school education and now in college, I maintain two separate calendars, one for school work and one for business. In my school work calendar I plot out all assignments that have been assigned and when they are due. Typically, I have as much as three weeks lead time for major papers and projects and know of testing dates at the beginning of the semester. Once I have established my calendar, I plan out my time so that I have a final product completed, whether it is an edited version of my essay or completely developed and analyzed study guide for a midterm, one week in advance. This way, I can ensure that all assignments will be completed in time and that I will not be scrambling at the last minute to get everything done. There are no surprises. It also leaves me a week to take my paper to my professor for additional editing or time to review for a test instead of cramming, allowing me to ensure that I excel in my academic work.
Sticking to this schedule is by no means easy. It requires hard work and dedication amidst all the distractions there are in the life of a student, especially in college dorm life. Yet sticking to this schedule is definitely possible and you will find that it frees up more of your time for recreation. Instead of sleeping in until noon or wasting time pointlessly surfing the web, take control of your time and get some work done. This way, you miss out on nothing, have your work completed, and can still relax or go out at night and during the weekends.
Once you have an academic calendar finalized, it comes to creating a work/blogging calendar and matching it with your academic calendar. You will tend to notice that despite even a rigorous course load, there is still plenty of time for business if you manage your time efficiently. I do the same thing for my business calendar that I do for my academic calendar; make a list of what all I need to get done and when. For example, as a blogger I need to write posts and market my blog so I create an editorial calendar to plan out which pieces I’m going to post when and a marketing plan to schedule when I am going to execute certain elements of my marketing strategy.
I schedule this work into time I have not dedicated as “academic time”. You will see that you begin to develop a routine as with blogging and school the same tasks have to be completed over and over again, whether it be writing posts or studying for weekly quizzes. Over time and with practice it becomes easier.
However, you must take into consideration the fact that there are certain times when you need to spend more time focusing on school and more time focused on business and you need to plan ahead for these times. For example, during finals week I need to be 100% focused to studying for my exams, yet I can’t just let my blog or business sit idle. In these cases, get help from the outside, getting guest posters, paid writers, or pre-scheduling posts. Remember, planning is very important.
While a blog/school balance is definitely doable, you have to be careful how many things you are involved in. There are only 24 hours in the day and you need to rest and take time to enjoy life, so make sure to not overextend yourself getting involved in too many different activities at one time. I have gone both routes, doing a little bit of everything and a doing lot of fewer things and have found that when I focus on fewer activities, I can fully dedicate myself to them and actually accomplish something meaningful. Prioritization is also very important. You have to do some research and soul searching to find what is MOST important to you. Personally, I recommend focusing on academics until your business or blog begins to take off and earn revenues. Even once you find professional success, I strongly recommend staying focused academically and achieving to the best of your ability because I am finding that academic effort and success and constantly opening new doors for me in my personal and professional lives.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
How to Manage a School/Blog Balance
Become a Blogger Reopens for 5 Days Only – Now Cheaper Than Ever
One of the most popular resources for new bloggers – Become a Blogger – is reopening its doors to new participants – for 5 days only.
It’s cheaper than ever before
If you’re a new blogger wondering how to get your blog started and moving towards reaching it’s potential – it can be a daunting prospect.
Become a Blogger is a step-by-step video based guide to walk you through the process in plain and easy to understand language.
The Guys Behind Become a Blogger
The two guys behind Become a Blogger are two people I have a lot of time for – Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick. Both live here in Australia and I regularly interact with both. They both have a gift in being able to explain complicated things clearly, they both know what they’re doing (you can get a taste for that in this free report that they’ve released) and have been successful in their own fields and they are both genuinely nice guys who I have real respect for.
I have no hesitation in recommending them to you as trainers and mentors in your blogging.
The resource is broken down into 8 Modules over 6 months – with a number of other bonuses. Here’s what is covered:
Module 1: Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And FREE
Module 2: How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance
Module 3: How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail
Module 4: How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd
Module 5: How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio
Module 6: How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video
Module 7: How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog
Module 8: How To Make Money From Your Blog
PLUS (Spread Throughout The Course): How To Use The “X-Factor” Strategies To Put Your Blog Into Super Drive!
PLUS: a range of other bonuses including a 10 part audio series on ‘master the mindset’ – access to the Become a Blogger Forums and special members only Teleconferences.
Previously Become a Blogger was $77 a month. It sold out at that rate and they closed the doors so as to deliver value to those who signed up.
Cheaper for a Limited Time Only
This time it’s $47 a month but you only have 5 days to become a part of it.
You can either sign up on a month by month basis or invest in it up front for the 6 months get a discount.
Of course as usual with these guys – there’s a money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied you can simply ask for your money back – I trust these guys to honor that commitment.
Signup for Become a Blogger here.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
Become a Blogger Reopens for 5 Days Only – Now Cheaper Than Ever
Winning The Web Announces ‘Winners Circle’
Gyutae Park of Winning the Web has just launched a new Internet marketing training program today called Winners Circle. And at first glance, I think it is pretty awesome.
Winners Circle is a members-only site with exclusive Internet marketing case studies, interviews, and community. Currently, there is one case study up and a new one is released each week. There are also a few interviews with top Internet marketers (released bi-weekly), a special bonus report called “4 Steps to Finding the Perfect Niche for Your Online Business”, and a forum which gives you direct access to Gyutae and other like-minded Internet entrepreneurs.
What sets Winners Circle apart from other Internet marketing sites is that it uses specific case studies and examples of successful sites (in various niches using different business models) to show you what works and what doesn’t. You really can’t find this type of information anywhere else.
The cost of the membership is normally $47 per month but as a special promotion, Gyutae is offering a rate of $27 per month to the first 200 members who sign up. There is even a 30-day money back guarantee and a fast action bonus for the first 50 people to sign up where Gyutae will personally audit your sites and provide 3 custom recommendations for SEO, traffic, and monetization.
To take advantage of the limited $27/month price and bonuses, you just need to head here and sign up!
This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog
Winning The Web Announces ‘Winners Circle’
Feedburner Drops Aweber From RSS Counts?? Or Not??
Mid last week a lot of blog owners saw their RSS subscribers count drastically decrease. I had seen this before but it never lasted more then a day (that i saw). I was surprised to see the issue still going on several days later as it started to pop up on forums, blogs, and on some Google Groups that Feedburner was no longer showing your Aweber Blog Broadcast Subscribers.
I talked to a friend who works at Feedburner and he said he was not sure the exact reason they stopped showing but that Feedburner in general was cleaning up questionable services that might not be reporting properly.
I think this was kind of funny as seeing as how they just started reporting friendfinder… anyway…
Earlier today Aweber’s CEO responded to me and John Chow’s tweets on Twitter:
I do hope its a temporary glitch. If its permanent it would be a huge blow to Aweber.
This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog
Feedburner Drops Aweber From RSS Counts?? Or Not??
Keyen and John J. Farrell Fail Again
After being threatened with sanctions for bringing a lawsuit without merit – On Friday, Google Adwords Specialist Keyen Farrell withdrew half of his counter suit against me.
If you have been following the case closely you already know this is the 2nd time Keyen and John J Farrell have had to significantly reduce or withdraw their claims/motions.
We plan to continue this winning streak in our case.
I would like to thank everyone for your support in the case. We will continue to fight the good fight.
This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog
Keyen and John J. Farrell Fail Again
Get A FREE $500 Review When You Become A Blogger
Blogging gurus Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick have just reopened the doors to their highly anticipated coaching program, Become a Blogger Premium. Anyone who is serious about taking their blogging efforts to the next level should check this program out. Over 1,000 students have taken the course and the reviews have been glowing.
Yaro and Gideon are masters at simplifying complicated “geek talk” and have put together an amazing online video course based on their very popular Become A Blogger video series. They’ve already had over 100,000 downloads for their blogging tutorial videos. If you read the Roadmap to Become a Blogger, then you know the quality of Yaro and Gideon’s work.
Yaro and Gideon has been in the blogging game for quite a while now, so they know what they’re talking about. For example, Yaro, makes as much as $70,000 per month from his blogging ventures. So, I’m sure you can learn a few things from him.
Get A Free $500 Review When You Become A Blogger
The Become A Blogger Premium course is six month long and cost $47 per month. Considering the amount of information, this is an amazing deal and I highly recommend it. What can make it better? How about me putting you ahead of the game by giving you a free $500 John Chow dot Com review for signing up to Become A Blogger Premium via my link?
Here’s the deal. Sign up to Become A Blogger Premium and learn everything you need to start and make money from a blog. Then use your free $500 review to kick your blog off to a flying start. Six month at $47 a month comes to $282. Advertisers pay $500 for a review on this blog and you’ll get it for free. Add it all up and you’ll be ahead of the game by a whopping $218!
To qualify for this offer. You must sign up with my link. If you don’t, then you won’t show up in my control panel and I can’t give you the free review. To make sure everything registers correctly, you may want to clear your browser cookies before clicking the link.
You can claim your free review after you’ve completed the Become A Blogger Premium course if you choose the monthly payment plan. If you pay for the entire program upfront, you can claim your review after the 61st day. This is because Become a Blogger Premium is covered by a 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee. It wouldn’t be right for you get a $500 review and then ask Yaro and Gideon for your money back.
Open For Five Days Only
Become A Blogger Premium is open for five days only. After then, registration will close and you won’t be able to sign up until Yaro and Gideon reopen the program sometime in 2010. This is a very limited time offer and I strongly encourage you to take advantage of it if you truly want to become a money making blogger.
Register to Become a Blogger Premium
Find out what I’m doing right now by following me on Twitter.
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BecomeABlogger.com Is Open Again (5 Days Only)
This Monday Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick are re-opening their BecomeABlogger.com course. If you don’t have a blog yet, or if you are just getting started with the whole blogging thing, this is probably the best course online for you. Why? Because it covers the A to Z of blogging, and all the lessons are video tutorials, so you can actually watch Yaro talking and showing things on his desktop.
Here are the 8 modules of the course (each of which comes with several videos inside):
- Get Your Blog Up And Running Fast And Free
- How To Optimize Your Blog For Maximum Search Engine Performance
- How To Create Powerful Content For Your Blog, Consistently and Without Fail
- How To Use Images On Your Blog To Make You Stand Out From The Crowd
- How To Create A Different Dimension To Your Blog By Adding Audio
- How To Breathe Life Into Your Blog Using Online Video
- How To Create Multiple Streams of High Quality Traffic To Your Blog
- How To Make Money From Your Blog
The course costs $47 per month, and it has a duration of six months. The cool thing is that after the six months you get lifetime access to the members area, the private forum, and to all future updates that Yaro might make to the course. The last time Yaro opened this course they got so many members that they were forced to close the doors for some time. This time around they will keep the new registrations open only for 5 days. If you think the course might be what you need, therefore, click here to check the official sales page with all the details.
I am an affiliate for Yaro, but as you probably know I promote his products because they are all top notch. In fact Yaro himself is so sure about the quality of the course that he is offering a 60-day money back guarantee. If you sign-up and don’t like what you see, you have 60 days to contact him and he will refund your money immediately, no questions ask. You got nothing to risk, in other words.
Partner:BecomeABlogger.com, the best online course for aspiring bloggers. Join today!
The Future of Copyblogger
What a wild three-and-a-half years, huh?
Copyblogger started out as a way for me to demonstrate what I knew and could do in order to collaborate on new media projects with others.
Now it’s the hub of a business enterprise that supports three families, two single guys, one single mom, and a host of domesticated animals.
And we’re just getting started. Of course, that means having a clear picture of where we want to go is pretty essential.
Guidance from the Wise Bald One
I’m not going to pretend that Seth Godin and I are best buddies who hang out on weekends and major holidays. But if there’s anyone I’d point to as a mentor, it’s him.
For years that came solely from his books, which in many cases was more than enough. In the last couple of years, however, Seth has been very generous with his time and wisdom when I needed guidance.
A couple of months ago, an email from Seth arrived with some unsolicited advice. Actually, it wasn’t advice, but a question:
What kind of tribe are you building?
Over the last 8 months, we’ve been experimenting with stretching the bounds of what Copyblogger covered, reviewed, and recommended. I think Seth thought we had gone off track, or lost the path. In hindsight, maybe he was right.
At first, I was annoyed. Then, I started giving it a great deal of thought. Finally, Sonia and I started to talk about it . . . a lot.
The result was what’s become known as the Two Tribes post. And that turned out to be a defining moment.
The Intersection of Pragmatism and Progress
Sonia and I are both students of online marketing. Not any one particular kind of online marketing, mind you, other than marketing that works.
That doesn’t mean we adopt things as is. The key to effective marketing is to be context appropriate, regardless of the tactic or strategy. So we’re very good at creative adaptation when it comes to taking, for example, an effective tactic that is being used in a sleazy manner, and making it non-sleazy. Or seeing a touchy-feely social media concept that makes sense, and tweaking it so it can actually convert prospects into customers.
To put this in context, Copyblogger has always been extremely selective about what we recommend to you in terms of paid offers. We had to be convinced through our own direct experience with the product or service that it had value and worked.
Products or tools have needed to be extremely useful. We’ve only recommended products that made it easy to make your money back, within a realistic timeframe and with skills that we are confident you already possess.
We didn’t necessarily care how those products or tools were marketed. We figured you’d just creatively adapt the tactics or strategies in a context-appropriate way.
That’s not enough any more. From this point forward, we’re only going to recommend and promote products that truly embody what we stand for.
It’s all about the Third Tribe.
What Does the Third Tribe Stand For?
We seek to combine the practical, solid techniques of the Internet Marketing so-called “gurus” and the ethical, content-focused, high-quality approach of the blogging world. It’s what we call the Third Tribe, and you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it in the coming months.
In practical terms, it means you’ll be seeing many more Copyblogger products, and far fewer from other people. My greatest satisfaction comes from knowing that we strive to make our in-house projects like Teaching Sells and Thesis not just good enough . . . but as good as we possibly can (and that’s an ongoing process).
One of the best ways to ensure that standard is to do more product development ourselves. So that’s what we’ll do.
If we do make an outside recommendation, it will be for someone who “gets it.” They may not be household names . . . yet. But they’re creating solid tools that work for real people, without hype and nonsense.
Copyblogger products will be created for smart businesspeople (even if you’re not too sure of your business skills yet), not naive “business opportunity” seekers who are constantly looking for the newest magic pill.
They’ll be products for people who take action, not dreamers who think about making millions overnight. The money really does roll in while you sleep with the right online business model . . . but only after you put in the time and hard work to get to that point.
Anyone who tells you differently can’t be trusted.
Over the past few years, Copyblogger has grown thanks to a very high standard for the free content we produce, and that’s not going to change. It’s just that we feel that an even higher standard applies to things you pay for.
Thought you might like to know. Especially since without you, there’d be no reason for us.
Thanks for everything: past, present, and future.
About the Author: Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. Get more from Brian on Twitter.
