Category Archives: Search Engine Optimization

John Carcutt and Ross Dunn Interview Google Expert Mike Blumenthal (“Professor Maps”) About Local Search

This week on Webmaster Radio’s SEO 101,  John Carcutt and Ross Dunn did a great job interviewing Google Places and local search expert Mike Blumenthal, who talked all about recent changes in local SEO as well some of the top things local businesses need to know about local online visibility.  I definitely recommend you listen to the full interview here, but if you’re time challenged, below are some key nuggets taken from Mike’s comments…..

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A Moment Of Humor In The Google + Press Fest: Top 10 Funniest Circle Names

So you’d have to be living under a rock not to be under seige from all of the coverage and buzz surrounding Google + right now.  It seems as though all the SEO & Social Media Digerati/pundits have clamped on to this puppy at lightning speed, and my personal opinion is that a whole lot of people in the biz were feeling that Facebook has become their dad’s AOL and they can’t run away from it fast enough.  But among the 2000 link bait posts out there talking about “The Top 10 Tips To Get The Most Out of Google +”, there was one tidbit I found that is really worth reading.

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Local Visibility 101: Getlisted University Teaches Michigan All About Online Marketing

Over 200 people attended the Getlisted.org Local University event in Grand Rapids this past week and were given a firehose dousing of valuable information on increasing their online visibility.  Top National SEO experts David Mihm, Mike Blumenthal, Aaron Weiche, John Carcutt and Will Scott downloaded to the audience with the latest info on Local SEO, Social Media, Google Places and a whole host of valuable topics.

Here  are some highlight photos and videos from the event:

Getlisted University Michigan: David Mihm presents common site pitfalls

David Mihm takes the crowd through common website pitfalls

Getlisted University panel

L to R: John Denny, Mike Blumenthal, Will Scott, David Mihm, John Carcutt, Aaron Weiche

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The Marketing Revolution: Light Reading To Help You Wake Up and Smell The Java

Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock the last 10 years, you’ve been getting the drift that some things may be changing in your marketing world.  But it’s not always easy to remind yourself that you need to be thinking a whole new way, and be developing entirely new skill sets to make yourself relevant to what’s going on.  So here are a few “wake up and smell the coffee” articles about the shifts going on, and what you need to do about it.

Snooze Alarm Number 1: “The Future of Advertising” from Fast Company

 The first point of view is “The Future of Advertising” from Fast Company.  If you are an ex-Ad Agency person like me– and you know a whole lot of people who used to work in the traditional agency business who hung on to that melting iceberg of traditional mass media ad strategies right down to its ice-cube size nub– this is quite a read.  Here are the some key take-aways:

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The Five Disciplines You Need To Know To Practice Marketing Today

People often ask me—whether they’re hiring a marketing agency, looking to find a marketing staffer, or  simply want to get more customers to buy from them —what knowledge is now foundational in a world of marketing and advertising that is changing so rapidly?  What are the core knowledge areas needed to succeed for where the world is now moving? The reality is the skills needed as a marketer running a mass advertising campaign in 1995 across 3 networks and a few cable stations are completely different from the capabilities you need to succeed today.  So below I’ve outlined the new core five—and provided a few basic sources to start you off learning what you need to know.

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Social Media 101: Where Do I Start If I Want To Learn More?

social_media_policy

Social media is everywhere you go today.  It’s what everyone talks about.  It’s what many people use to describe lots of things (even when they don’t have a clue what they’re talking about).  So to you, this may sound a lot like 1999 when a whole bunch of people were talking “surfing the web”, “monetizing eyeballs” and the buzz was that companies like The Globe,  GeoCities, and Broadcast.com were taking over the world.  And look what happened with that?  Bustado and most of them gone.  So is Social Media pretty much the same thing?  Is it the hot fad like Boy Bands– here today and then we’re going to laugh at how silly everyone was a few years from now?  Recent articles in pubs like AdAge and essay’s from folks like Malcom Gladwell have started questioning this “outsized enthusiasm for social media” and its impact on our world.  And in the middle of some of the debate going on right now, it might be easy to crawl under the covers and feel encouraged that this facebooky-tweeter stuff may just all go away and life will go back to its safe and predictable orbit of the sun.  So is that what you should do?

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SEO Basics: Page Titles that get your content found

 When we talk to businesses about search engine optimization, one of the first things we do is check out their site to see how sophisticated they are about optimization.  And one of the quick “tricks” our team uses is get a sense of whether any of the most basic SEO work has been done, is to check the page title.  A page title that includes the important keywords consumers are using to find the business, and that is well written, tells us (in about 3 seconds) how much the people we’re potentially working with actually know.  You’d be amazed at how many page titles say “Home” (Now if you look right now at the page title of your home page and it says “home”, you can immediately put yourself in the remedial class with a test score that doesn’t even give you credit for signing your name.  You need help).

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