Make sure that your site uses the local keywords on the pages and in its tags. Gather links from local business directories.

Register the site with DMOZ.org – Google uses this as a feed. Also submit the site direct to Google here http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Usually takes only 2-3 weeks (provided you follow the Google rules – if you try to cheat for a higher page rank, they’ll catch you, and probably block you)

Have you actually tried advertising with “Google Maps”? If you haven’t, that’s why it doesn’t come up with the first group. Go to Google maps and click on advertise with Google Maps, it’s just below add or edit your business. Also, try contacting them about this. They are pretty good about getting back to people. If I can think of anything else I’ll post again. Good luck

How Does It Work

Google Alerts sends you an email each time a new page for your chosen term makes it in the top twenty results on Google’s web search. You can also have the alert check Google News and/or Google Groups. To sign up for a Google Alert, all that you need to do is visit the Google Alerts homepage (http://www.google.com/alerts), enter the search term, type of alert (search Google News, Google Groups, or the web), frequency of emails (daily, as it happens, or weekly), and your email address. You can set up alerts for as many terms as you like using a Google Account. So why would you want an unlimited amount of alerts? Because as a business owner, you have a lot to keep track of and very limited time to do it.

Spy on Your Competitors

Every business has a competitor. More likely, you have several direct competitors and several more indirect competitors. While regularly checking out their websites is an important part of the process, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. A competitor’s website is very much crafted to the image that they want to portray to their customers. This is great if you want to know what their latest sale is or how much their new product costs, but it isn’t likely to feature a negative review in last Sunday’s newspaper.

That’s where Google Alerts comes in. By simply setting up a News, Groups, and search alert for each of your competitors, you will know what other people are saying about your competition – both the media and consumers, both good and bad.

Keep Up To Date on Your Industry

Equally as important as what people are saying about your competition is what people are saying about your industry in general. If there’s a negative PR swing against violent video games, and you just happen to run a video game store, you will probably be affected. By receiving alerts on important key words related to your industry, you can be on top of any sudden changes and react accordingly. By the time your competition realizes what’s happening they will be scrambling to catch up to you.

Track Yourself and Your Business

It goes without saying, if it’s important to know what people are saying about your competitors and about your industry, it would stand to reason that it’s important to know what people are saying about you. I have Google Alerts on both my name and my businesses name. I know that they go hand in hand – if one is getting slandered you better bet it will hurt the other. By receiving alerts, you can be on top of anything negative relating to you or your business, and hopefully nip any problem in the bud before it grows too large. On the flip side, there’s nothing better than receiving an alert where someone praises your business. Those are the types of things that you want to make sure are on the PR page of your businesses website.

Get News Stories for Your Site or Blog

I own a site where I do weekly news updates about what’s going on in the industry. Some weeks, there are tons of news items to choose from, other weeks it’s hard to find anything. In addition to the regular industry news sites that I check to get information, I have Google Alerts set up for each of the key terms. You’d be surprised how frequently a unique story from a local newspaper pops up in Google News. Many times these stories haven’t been seen by my competitors and I am able to “break” the news to the online community. This works well for blogs too – if you have a daily blog about being an entrepreneur, having an alert for the word “entrepreneur” can fetch you several quality stories each day to help inspire fresh posts.

In this increasingly competitive business world, you need each and every leg up on your competition that you can get. Used properly, Google Alerts can be an extremely efficient way to track what’s going on across the web. The alternative would be to search each term every day for new updates. Who has time for that? Spending less time researching enables you to spend more time on the things important to your business.

Adam Mcfarland
http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/using-google-alerts-to-help-your-business-41675.html

Among the report’s highlights is its finding that Yahoo and Bing/MSN have both gained market share among the major search engines, perhaps as much as five percent (5%). The report also notes that the tide continues to rise for all the search engines in Local – including Google. Microsoft’s newly-launched Bing seems to be doing especially well since its summer launch.

“Microsoft spent a lot of money over the summer to launch Bing, and they targeted their campaign directly at local business owners,” said Matt Booth, SVP and Program Director, Interactive Local Media for BIA/Kelsey. “I should think that they would be encouraged by these results, as more and more SMBs move their ad budgets away from print and directories and online, small market share increases will come to represent big dollars.”

The WebVisible Report cites Bing/MSN’s higher click-through rates (CTR) in certain verticals as a potential explanation for this market dynamic. Projected strategically, this could bode well for Microsoft in the race to grab as much market share in the fast-growing, hyper-local market.

“The big picture is great news for SMBs and good news for the Engines,” said Kirsten Mangers, WebVisible CEO. “Local revenue is up across the board, and the number of first-time buyers to increase quarter-on-quarter. Anyone would feel good about the increased competition in these markets. But, the real news is that these SMB advertisers are getting results from their interactive budgets that they’ve been after for years now. Local interactive is on the rise – because it works.”

Rising Local CPCs – Rising Budgets?

Cost per Clicks (CPCs) – the amount advertisers spend for each keyword term or phrase clicked on by users – has been increasing steadily for small business advertisers. This, after a drop due to reduced spending in Q2 2009, CPCs stabilized in Q3. While Google still dominates the charts with the most market share, the numbers have decreased as advertisers spread their money across other search engines. In Q3 2009, Google accounted for 60.4% of search advertising spending. Yahoo! accounted for 26.2%, Bing* 10.5% and Ask 2.4%. Google lost five points year-over-year (YoY) as spend shifted among these other engines. Bing (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is the current web search engine from Microsoft and also powers Yahoo! Search, has stepped up to compete for a chunk of the local advertiser budget. With CPC rates almost 30% lower than Google in some verticals, according to the WebVisible Report, Bing has been able to gain market share from the Search giant.

Bing’s debut in the summer of 2009 featured an $80 to $100 million online, TV, print, and radio advertising campaign in the US alone. Without mentioning the competition, they attempt to convince users to switch to Bing by focusing on its search features and functionality. They claim that Bing does a better job countering “search overload,” offering more-relevant, higher-quality results and helps you find what you’re looking for faster than the competition. Regardless of the advertising spend to increase Bing’s awareness the WebVisible report indicates a shift in ad spend to given higher conversion rates and available advertising inventory.

Other notable findings in the WebVisible report show Click-through rates (CTR) improved YoY across all the engines, with the biggest improvement on Yahoo!, whose CTR improved 123% from Q3 2008 to Q3 2009.

Technorati Tags: webvisible

WebVisible markets software to small businesses with the promise of better management of their online ad buys. The company’s management tools operate across a range of platforms, including search engines.  The company also has various relationships in the yellow pages industry, so that its services are re-sold by various players, including AT&T (NYSE: T), British Telecom, European Directories, Intuit, and The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) Company.

Technorati Tags: webvisible

Local search is all the rage. At the 2007 Search Engine Strategies event in New York City there were presentations and exhibitors touting the importance of local search strategies and tactics.

It’s like the presenters and exhibitors just discovered that people are really mostly interested in finding products and services nearby.

I guess what’s really going on is that finally technology, or its application, has caught up with what people really want Internet search to do for them.

I use Internet search for everything – especially local! We haven’t had a copy of the Yellow Pages (or white pages) in our apartment since we got high-speed access.

We Google directions to the Gap across town. If a movie is playing in Brooklyn we Google directions to the theater and buy the tickets online – so we can get in after we make the trek.

As a user we know all we need to know about local search. We type in what we want and where we want to get it and bingo – here it is and a map’s included. It just doesn’t get any better than that.

So, what’s the big deal for business owners when it comes to local search in 2007?

It’s leveling the field – putting the Main Street Companies we love doing business with right up there with their big box rivals.

How’s that possible you ask? Well, here are three simple ways to maximize your over all search results using a local search focus.

Differentiation:
What makes your company different? What are the local aspects of your business? That’s how you differentiate yourself from your competitors. Local search ads and placement provide the opportunity.

Would you rather eat spaghetti at a local franchise of a national chain or a locally owned Italian restaurant that’s supported the community since 1963 – who supplies pizza for the area football team parents night and whose grand daughter won the state’s citizenship award competition?

We do business with our friends. Local search provides us with the information we need to do so.

Reach Buyers When They’re Ready To Buy:
Let’s say I was looking for a health club membership to begin addressing my 2004 New Year’s resolution. OK, so I’ve put it off a bit – but now I may be ready, so what’s my number one criterion?

Location. It has to be as close to me as possible – so I’ll be more likely to show up.

I may have been introduced to a certain company via their TV commercials. In our many walks around the various communities in New York I may have passed dozens of their health clubs. I may even know people who have a membership at one of them and swear by it.

But if I’m going to join one – it has to be in my neighborhood.

So I go online, do a local search, and find that they have a brand new heath club only a few blocks away. They even have printable coupons for various membership types. I’m doomed – my last really good excuse is gone.

Leverage All Your Touch Points
If your online goal is to simply drive people physically into your place of business you can provide them with directions to your place, a map, when you’re open, etc. with your local search strategy.

Perhaps more importantly you can offer your customers additional options for doing business with you – which they did not know about.

Let’s say you sell cement to contractors and homeowners. Your customers get it delivered to the job site or in their driveway – most of the time. No one ever comes by, even though you have people working there twelve hours a day seven days a week.

Local search can be used to tell people that you’re open in case they need to pick up a few extra bags of Quickrete over the weekend. Or they can place an order online or on your 24 hour a day voicemail for next day delivery.

Effective local search tactics reaches local searchers when they are ready to buy – with every way that it is possible for them to buy from you.

At the Search Engine Strategies event the experts told us to adopt a search marketing strategy that has global reach (hey, you never know), regional implications, and connects with our local buying audience.

How is that possible? Let’s take a top down look.

National Campaign:
For most companies this is best left to their manufacturers. Let General Motors create the buzz, show the new models, pitch the extraordinary value, and the environmental friendliness of their vehicles.

Let them do national TV and spend a bazillion dollars on search engine optimization, just push them to link to your company while they’re at it. Hey, it’s their brand; so let them do the branding.

You spend your money and energy with actions that result in sales for you.

Expanded regional Area Keyword Search:
There is an Auto Mall on I71 North of Cincinnati. I bet the dealers there sell most of their vehicles to folks who live north of downtown all the way up maybe 25 to 40 miles north of where the Mall is located.

People living a little farther north of that line may turn right when they get on I71 and head toward Columbus. People south of downtown Cincinnati cross the bridge into Northern Kentucky. On the east side of Cincinnati there is at least one huge Auto Mall siphoning off potential business as well.

Out of area local search can target these buyers telling them to come by your dealership for a comparison before they buy. If they do you guarantee to make it worth their time.

Tell them how long it will take on I275 from different parts of the metro area. And if they buy a new vehicle you’ll give them an extra $500 off if they live more than so many miles away. You get the idea.

What’s it worth to your business to increase your traditional marketing area by another 25 miles in every direction?

Local Relevance Promotions:
Don’t forget the importance of dominating the market you’re already in. A local search marketing strategy will help you solidify your base with a reminder that you’re still there.

As a local business owner you are sought out by every community endeavor for your support. Local search provides an opportunity improve on your local relevance – why people should support your business. Local search gives you a chance to remind people of your commitment to them.

As with the Italian restaurant – I’ll pay more money for new tires if given the chance to buy them from the nice people who sent the local high school band to New Orleans to play in the Sugar Bowl parade – even if it was a decade ago.

Compare that to saving a few bucks from a giant store where I am just a number and actually had to be there before 10am to qualify for the special price anyway.

Here are three things to keep in mind when considering your local search marketing strategy.

What do you really want?
How far can you haul gravel and still make money? How far can your service technicians travel and still at least break even? Do you simply want to dominate your traditional selling area or do you see local search as a way to gradually and systematically expand you company into a wider and wider area? Knowing this will help you when it comes to budgeting the resources required.

Who’s willing to help you?
Will you highly respected manufacturer link to you in a way that helps raise your status with the search engines? Or will other companies join you in an effort to build your presence online collectively? Consider the Auto Mall – there must be a dozen of more dealerships all in one place. Working together with ad buys and pooling resources to hire SEO experts will benefit them all.

What’s your budget?
Where’s the money going to come from – your major distributors, your manufacturer, our your wallet? What’s your stomach for online advertising? Do you have the people and the interest to do pay for performance ads? Or do you feel more comfortable with the idea of doing whatever SEO you can do easily, buy ads on a fixed rate basis like in the Yellow pages – and move on?

What it all boils down to is what’s important to you.

For some maybe reading this article is enough. When they do whatever marketing and/or advertising they do in the future they’ll factor some of these thoughts into their decisions.

Others will want to know more, this will have opened their eyes to some real possibilities they are missing – stuff they want to be doing before their competitors start doing them.

Wayne Messick
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/internet-search-like-politics-is-local-138202.html

If you do affiliate marketing, promote your own products or do any kind of internet marketing you are depending on these two factors: traffic and conversion.  These two factors will determent if you are a success or not.  If you are anything like me, you love free traffic and here I will share some tricks for you to get more free traffic from google.  

There are a number of ways to get traffic from google and they all involve a lot of work and requires some skills.  Forget all about traditional SEO to get free traffic from google maps.  It is also a great way to show your selves or the product you are promoting to list it properly with google maps. Google have three kind of maps on the first page.  They have a ten box, ten listings on the map, a three box and even a one box (if you get this one you are dominating your niche).  If you have a business in a bigger city in the US you can literally have hundreds and even thousand’s of visitor’s every day.  There are also ways to do this without having a physical business present but we will go deeper in to this subject in our upcoming e-book to our subscribers.

So here is the drill:

* The first you thing you do is to create a google account or a gmail account.

* Add a new listing in your “maps” tab once you are logged in to “Google Local Business center”.  Here you need to fill in as much as you can, important. Upload pictures, add videos if you have.  As much as you have, but remember to keep it relevant to your business.

* It is an advantage if you have your own website.

* As category’s choose keywords relevant to your business.  So if you for instance are promoting “weather cleanser”, use “water cleanse” and “cleanse water” in the categories.

* You need an actual phone number to verify your listing and if you don’t have a physical business in your city don’t worry. You can get a phone number from a many different sources but we prefer skype and Vumber.  With skype you can receive calls directly on your computer.  You also wanna fill in relevant information under “additional information”.

* When you press “continue” you will be asked how to verify and if you use phone google will call you right away to give you a verify code.  Once this is done you are all set – so far.

* Google will cross reference your listing with a number of other additional listings, so you do wanna list your business with a number of other sites.  Here are a list of where I list our business (this is if you have a business in the US, if you don’t use similar sites where you are located):

superpages.com
listings.yellowpages.com
infousa.com
localeze.com
mapreporter-test.navteq.com
biz.yelp.com
citysearch.com
insiderpages.com
local.yahoo.com

It will take from 30-60 days before your listing are accepted at some of these sites so it won’t make you a millionaire tomorrow, but this small effort can give you some extra free organic traffic from google maps.

To your success

Tom Hammerborg

Get your free e-book “how to set up your blog” here: http://qualityNetworkers.com

Tom Hammerborg

It doesn’t matter if you are a small firm offering computer parts to local businesses or sell clothes to a wide range of international consumers, launching your bricks and mortar venture across the Internet will most definitely work in your favor. Before you can increase the awareness and interest in your business, there are a few things you should consider, which will make this transition into the World Wide Web much easier. Below you will find a few tips to get you started:

1) Assess Potential Start-Up Costs

Before you commit to creating an online presence, you should be aware of all start-up costs, which for some may seem quite intimidating. Website design doesn’t usually cost an arm and a leg and if you possess any creative skills, the final total will be much lower. For the average start-up site, costs are often seen between $500 and $1000. Websites also require a hosting company, which could cost about $20 to $30 per month. Those following a tight budget can find less expensive substitutes in all areas of website design, hosting, and maintenance; it just might take a little longer to locate.

2) Offer Up-to-Date Information

Since customer service is handled across the Net, it is important to keep all website information up-to-date and easy-to-find. For those who need additional information before making a purchase, it is vital to offer alternative means of contact, such as email addresses, telephone numbers, and store address. Businesses with a direct customer service line are highly attractive to the curious consumer.

3) Consider Search Engine Optimization

Once your website is complete, you can optimize it for popular search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. It is quite common for some businesses to fall victim to submission scams trick unsuspecting webmasters in paying a fee for multiple search engine submission, so be careful of what services you use.

4) Request Reciprocal Links

Amplify your chances for increased traffic to your site by establishing a reciprocal link relationship with another website. For instance, if you sell fashionable dog outfits, you may seek out dog food companies and pet shops that might find interest in trading links. Some websites quickly climb the ranks of search engines because they possess a high number of reciprocal links.

5) Consider Common Website Traffic Tactics

Don’t be afraid to explore website boosting tactics, such as cost per click search advertising to attract more visitors to your site.

6) Don’t Forget the Little Things

In the rush and excitement to launch your business on the Web, don’t forget the little details that are so very important. All bricks and mortar websites should display their company mission statement, contact information, map to business, and hours of operation.

Gabriel Adams
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/tips-for-launching-your-bricks-and-mortar-business-onto-the-web-127106.html