When Looking For a Local Business Search Still Rules

Posted on July 7, 2011 Written by 17 Comments

When people are looking to find local businesses, search is still king according to research from the Local Search Association (formerly the Yellow Pages Association).

Two things jumped out at me when looking at this chart. One is that the yellow page numbers seem incredibly high. Have 62% of people really used the yellow pages in the last month?

The second is how far down social media is on this list. Is social media really the 9th most used source to fine a local business today? Is social media really behind newspapers, directories, store circulars and internet yellow pages?

 Read more... (291 words, 3 images, estimated 1:10 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: Demographics, SEO, Social Media Marketing

Using Search Engines To Greater Effect: Knowing The Difference In Your SEO Approach

Posted on May 20, 2011 Written by 18 Comments

Search Engine Optimization is a buzzword in most circles on the Internet yet few really understand what it is and how it works. Given this lack of understanding, most businesses, blogs, and individuals don’t get that it’s, for all intents and purposes, the life blood of ensuring online success. Most consider SEO with the same indifference or soft approach that has allowed competition to railroad them while, concurrently, making huge success stories from other online entrepreneurs.  Read more... (569 words, 2 images, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO

Don’t Build Your Brand On A Third Party Platform

Posted on September 28, 2010 Written by 86 Comments

This is a topic I have been thinking about for a while and the recent article on BizReport prompted me to finally write this post.

As I was travelling this summer I started to see more and more business advertise their Facebook page instead of their domain name. It was not only big brands that were doing this, but smaller brands too.

So the BizReport article ask’s this question at the top of the post:

Are Facebook Pages killing websites? Does your company need a website? This question is being asked in boardrooms around the globe as figures and consumer behavior suggests websites are losing out to Facebook Pages.  Read more... (515 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization

Don’t Forget Search

Posted on November 4, 2009 Written by 18 Comments

Really interesting research data from ad network Chitika, via eMarketer on the quality of visitors from social networking sites.

The Chitika study looked at the quality of traffic from search engines and social networks, and the results were a little surprising. According to Chitika, social sites Facebook and Digg are more likely to send returning traffic to your web site than search engines such as Yahoo!, Google and Bing.

More than one-fifth of users referred to a site by Facebook visited at least four times in the course of a week. Less than 12% of Google-referred visitors were as loyal, about the same percentage as Twitter.  Read more... (283 words, 3 images, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO, Social Media Marketing

Downside of Sharing

Posted on July 1, 2008 Written by 3 Comments

One of the best things about a blog is that you get to talk about and exchange ideas on what is working and not working in social media. That is good.

The downside is that by sharing you might wake up one morning and find out that the tactics(s) that you have been using successfully no longer work. Either because the search engines manually adjusted your site, or because a lot of people started to use that tactic thus devaluing it.

This is a topic that Aaron Wall at SEObook.com wrote about today and Brent Csutoras wrote a great post on Shoemoney.com recently about over sharing.  Read more... (452 words, 1 image, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization

Speaking at Boston Internet Marketing SEO Networking Meetup

Posted on May 28, 2008 Written by 2 Comments

Next Monday (June 2nd) I will be talking at the Boston Internet Marketing SEO Networking Meetup about how we have used social media sites like stumbleupon, digg.com etc to create targeted links and traffic. My presentation will be followed by a round table discussion on social media.

If you are in the Boston area and are coming to the event I hope that you will stop by and introduce yourself

David Wilson

I have been in providing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to clients for the last 8 years. I believe that SMO is where all the online services are going to converge over the next 18 months.  Read more... (112 words, 1 image, estimated 27 secs reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO, Social Media Optimization

Talking Reputation Management With Aaron Wall

Posted on April 7, 2008 Written by 10 Comments

I recently had the chance to ask search engine optimization expert Aaron Wall about reputation management and how to use different social media tools to “squeeze out” negative references from showing up on the search results page. This was a topic that Aaron had written about in the past and I am grateful to Aaron to take time to answer my questions  Read more... (809 words, 1 image, estimated 3:14 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media Optimization

A Look Inside A Social Media Campaign – Part 2

Posted on March 19, 2008 Written by Leave a Comment

Last month I pulled back the curtain a little and gave a look inside a social media campaign that we are currently undertaking for soccer tickets online. The story generated quite a few comments and emails and I wanted to provide an update on how the campaign is going.

To summarize our initial efforts we created five targeted social media events focused around creating awareness for the web site. Two of the events went popular on Digg and two made the buzz page at StumbleUpon. As a result these two web sites sent over 5,000 visitors to the web site.  Read more... (610 words, 1 image, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization

How Social Media is changing the online landscape

Posted on February 6, 2008 Written by 3 Comments

I had an interesting conversation with a new client yesterday. The conversation was around goals and what we wanted to achieve during our campaign. As the conversation progressed I was struck by how social media is changing how we market online.

If I think back to how this conversation would have gone two years ago I am sure we would have been focused on discussing keywords and how to get onto the first page of Google for them. The complete strategy would have been focused around the web site.  Read more... (366 words, 1 image, estimated 1:28 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization

Third Time Lucky For Wal-Mart?

Posted on July 26, 2007 Written by 2 Comments

Wal-Mart is making yet another attempt to add social media to its web site according to Advertising Age. Wal-Mart which has failed miserably in its other social media attempts has decided that that consumer-generated content is the new way to go.

Wal-Mart’s previous social media attempts included a MySpace-like offering aimed at teens was a miserably failure and was shut down after less than three months. It failed mainly because Wal-Mart screened all the content, informed parents when their children joined and forbade users to e-mail one another. Wal-Mart tried again earlier this year with a travelogue “blog” that it was forced to stop when news got out that the blog was created and paid for by its PR firm.  Read more... (402 words, 1 image, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

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Filed Under: Brand Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Social Retailing
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