Google Places SEO Citations Is About To Go Beta
December 1, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Google Places SEO Citations Is About To Go Beta
Google Places SEO Citations is a new website that features DIY Local SEO and Google Places SEO video training. It also includes Holistic and Social SEO training. The whole concept of this program centers around Scratch My Back Marketing. This involves branding and marketing your website and business while acquiring citations, backlinks, likes, and connections.
This program encourages providing value through photos, videos, blogs and comments when and where ever possible. It’s all about user providing something of value to the website in exchange for links, citations, and social influence. This marketing approach is all about win/win marketing. Successful SEO requires the efficient and effective use of a myriad of websites and social media resources. And this training covers just about every thing that a local small business owner needs to know to grow their business using Google.
After all, there is a very limited number of things that you can do to a website or a Google Places page to properly optimize them. Then you move onto the marketing phase which requires a significant amount of time be spent on sites that allow user generated content. This is where Scratch My Back Marketing comes into play. That’s basically how you did SEO, if you knew what you were doing up till 2011.
Then 2011 rolled into and through our lives. It’s also a time where Google was introducing the Caffeine algorithm, the Panda update, and now it’s the freshness update. If this wasn’t enough change Google also started using the +1 button for crowdsourcing. Yikes, it’s been a busy year.
Having said all of that; there is one key element to this training that allows it to stand out in a crowded SEO field. And this is the selection called Holistic SEO. Here you are given advice and direction on how to improve your websites user experience. I have always said “It doesn’t make any sense to bring traffic to a bad or broken website.”This really comes into play now. The +1 button allows your visitors to vote on your website, if they are logged into a Google account. If your website doesn’t meet someone’s expectation they can give your website a negative vote as they depart. It’s that simple!
Yep, it’s a whole new world of challenges out there on the internet but fortunately this training is up to date and relevant. And the beauty of the Google Places SEO Citations website is all of this is explained in easy to follow step by step videos. About 98% of this training can be preformed by any adult who can follow directions.
I am so confident of this training that I will provide you one month’s free access to Google Places SEO Citations.
What say you?
Google Places SEO Citations Blog Local SEO Services Google Places SEO Google Places Citations
Do you own a local small business in Tucson, Arizona or elsewhere and you need Google Places SEO or Places Citations services? Then please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 or email me Now!
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Do You Appreciate Your Readers?
May 13, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
This was originally posted in 2009.
Do You Appreciate Your Readers?
I have written about this subject in the past and I thought it was time to take another look at this subject.
I have visited thousands of blogs and forums over the last few years. There are two trends that always appear on my radar screen. They are a large group of blogger’s who want more comments on their blogs. The second group of blogger’s don’t seem to care who is commenting or what is being said.
The whole idea of social media which includes forums and blogs, as well as many other types of sites such as FaceBook or MySpace is about being social. Being social is about connecting, discussing and carrying on a discussion. A discussion requires ongoing input to be effective. That’s where many forum posters and blog authors fail.
I see it all the time, someone starts a conversation on a forum or blog and abandons the conversation. You know, someone starts a topic and let’s say its about marketing on Twitter. Then others begin to make comments and some ask questions, but the questions go unanswered. I’ve seen this many times over and over again. Blog posted are started all the time, the discussion begins, and questions are asked but they are not answered by the blogs author.
The problem is that so many blog owners and forum posters don’t follow the post or thread that they started. So these valuable questions go unanswered. The net result is that there is no real conversation. I don’t know about you but I am less likely to return to a blog that has chosen to ignore me or if I see others regularly ignored.
Most of these blogs are not moderated and the comments generally are posted immediately. Now, if that is how these folks want to treat those who leave comments that OK by me. I prefer to take the time to answer the question because I feel it my responsibility, after all I started the conversation and I want to show my appreciation.
These people I believe are missing the whole point of social media. Then there is the second group of blogger’s who needs, wants, and desires to have more comments on their blogs. For this group I have a few easy to implement suggestions. The first one is that you need to reward your visitors for making comments.
I am going to make some suggestions here that are basically useless if you have lousy content. It is better to post great content every three days or so or maybe once a week than to waste your time posting just to post. People respond when you post ads value to their lives or stirs up emotions.
You then must learn to promote your blog. I have read hundreds of really useful blogs that lacked comments. We all have heard content is king but that only true if it is found and read. I am not going to go into detail about how to market a blog that’s been covered way to many times by others. If you new to blogging and blog promotion then go to Google and search for something like blog promotion tutorials. You will find lots of useful info.
The easiest way is to increase comments is to make your blog Do Follow. Yes, it will increase spam that’s the is the price you pay for attempting to acquire more comments. Here is how you make Do Follow work for you. First, your blog must be moderated so the spam doesn’t appear on your blog. Then you will need to add a plugin to protect yourself from bot spam. You might want to look into the Bad Behavior plugin. I have since added other layers of anti spam defenses..
This plugin will do nothing to stop comment spam from low wage countries such as China, India, Eastern Europe, or from unscrupulous link builders. Most of these comments will end up in your spam filter and will be easy to discard. This blog was averaging about 250 spam comments a day until I installed Bad Behavior. That has been reduced by about 95%. Be careful to actually review these spam comments. I usually pull several comments out of Akismet everyday. They are easier to find when I don’t have to sort through hundreds of comments to find the good ones.
Now, you will want to add the Comment & Keyword Luv plugins. The Comment Luv plugin pulls a permalink from your blogs latest post automatically. The newest version allows you to pull a much wider variety of posts from up to five different blogs. That permalink is added to the end of their comment. So others blogger’s are rewarded with a second link. Other blogger’s tend to leave better comments and they just might write about you if you have a great blog. (I no longer use these or recommend them.)
The Keyword Luv plugin allows you to use your name along with your anchor text link of the commenter’s choosing in the comments name field. This is an extremely valuable incentive for someone to leave a comment especially if they don’t have a blog. However, many purists will never use this plugin because they believe people should comment solely based on the posts content and that they should use a real name. Keyword Luv allows you to use both.
While I respect that opinion I think this position misses the dynamic changes that are occurring in the industry. Acquiring links that allow link juice to flow (Do Follow Links) are increasingly more difficult to obtain. This is especially true since Google began waging war on the practice of buying and selling links. Blogs are now ground zero in the link building game. So why not use this to your advantage?
Finally, there is one final piece of this puzzle to be put into place. You should consider thanking your commenter’s in an email. I am not talking about using an auto responders here. What I am suggesting is a short email response of a sentence or two that expresses gratitude for the commenter’s efforts. This shows that you genuinely care about the person who left a comment. This will encourage them to return or maybe even mention your blog on their blog. OMG what a concept, showing that you care!
If someone asks a very specific question I often will often answer that question on the blog. I will then respond in person with an answer or I will provide a link back to the answer on the blog. This encourages this person to return to the blog to see your answer. This approach was provided bunches of accolades from my readers. They often are very surprised to get a response. I can’t begin to express the huge amount of good will this has produced.
Now, I will admit that when I get busy I can not respond to all comments. Thus I get a bit choosy when responding. However, if someone has left a truly worthy comment that got my attention I will definitely response. I am still new enough to blogging that I really enjoy most of the comments that I receive here. What really makes my day is when I read the return emails thanking me for responding personally. These are often very real, warm, and heart felt.
In closing I have one more suggestion for you to battle comment spam. I placed a minimum requirement on comments to obtain a link from this blog. The commenter must leave a 20 word comment before I will approve it. Anything less and the comment usually will get deleted. If the comment is short but useful it will be posted without a link.
What this posts is really about is treating your visitors with respect and giving them an incentive to comment and then rewarding them when you get the desired results which are great comments.
Update 06/10/2009 – There was another point that I would like to mention. I verify almost every website that wants a link from me. You need to be careful who you link to these days. While I am verifying if the website is worth linking to I often leave a comment on the blog if they have one. That’s really shows appreciation and really spreads good will.
Update 01/24/2010: I have not done any of what I have suggested over the last few months. This has been due to the fact that Geri, my life partner, is critically ill and has been in and out of the hospital over the last few months. Yet, this has also been a lesson about appreciating your readers. Many of those whom I have personally thanks for there comments have returned in our time of need and shared their caring and warm support. So being nice and appreciating your readers can pay off in ways that you never imagined.
Are you ready to grow your blog comments and possibly your search rankings?
What say you?
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If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
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Blogging For Links What You Need To Be Successful 2
January 25, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
Blogging For Links What You Need To Be Successful 2
This post was originally written back in 2009.
Now, that I have gotten my frustrations off my chest in the previous post, it’s time to get down to business. I will start off by claiming to actually know something about link building. First, I would like to direct you to my post on how well this site ranks for our targeted keyword phrases. As of October 1 we ranked for over 60 keyword phrases. I would especially like to point out that we rank anywhere from #5 to # 1 in Google for the keyword phrase Backlinks Building Services.
Let me make it clear that this was not accomplished by a large staff of link builders it was accomplished by one person and that person is Urban. Many of the keyword phrases that I target include highly competitive phrases that include either the words SEO or internet marketing in them. No, building links is not all that I do, but I spend more time on link building and branding than anything else. I also build links 7 days a week.
I should also point out that I no longer build links by using blog commenting on stand alone blogs. I gave it up for several reasons. The main reason was that because I include SEO in my keyword phrase in the name field where allowed. Spam filters were picking it up. I did a case study that only 43% of my blog comments got approved. However, this is not likely to happen to you if you provide useful relevant comments.
When I blogged for comments for clients the number of accepted comments was usually about 85%. I also have noted that blogs disappear, are abandoned, or went no follow at a high rate. Blog links for myself and my clients disappeared at an alarmingly high rate for me. In the cell phone industry is change of is called churn rate.
Now, having said that, I know many people prefer blog commenting for links. So I figure I would clue you in on how you can improve your link building success rate. You see, I am a big fan of working smarter and not harder.
A successful blog commenting campaign is all about being prepared and setting goals. I recommend that you start by analyze your competition. The easiest way to find relevant linking resources is to see where your competitors got their links. You must and find out who is linking to them. A really good resource is Backlink Watch. All that you need to do is enter your competitors url and hit enter. They will provide you with up to 1,000 backlinks that are going to your competitors. It also may indicate if the link is Do Follow or No Follow.
There are a few other good choices such as Yahoo’s Site Explorer. I just did a search of a professional link builder today that I am very familiar with. Yahoo’s Site Explorer produced 2843 links pointing to her site and Backlink Watch produced around 2700 links. The problem is that each sites allows you to only access to the first 1,000 backlinks. I don’t know if they are both using the same database or different ones.
The point is that I now have a huge database from where I can begin the process of link building. I am certain that their will be a lot of overlapping links, but that’s ok. If the source is a good source going back a second time is a very good thing. Of course, it works both ways. If the resource is No Follow or no good you will likely have doubled a fruitless effort. Many times you’ll land at a site and never find that sites link and there are no linking opportunities available.
It’s not a perfect solution but it does reveal a whole lot about your competition. Are these links No Follow or Do Follow can easily be ascertained. Then you will want to look for link patterns. Does your competitor have a favorite source that they use like directories or blogs. Maybe them prefer to use forums. In some ways link building is a pathway or trail that has already been blazed by your competition. Their link building history isn’t hidden away in some secret place. You just need to know where and how to look.
I recent have been testing out Raven SEO Tools. They offer a free 30 day trail of the software. Those who are regulars here already know that I am no fan of SEO or related automated tools. I mention this simply because the amount of backlinks information for any site I think tops out at 50,000 per search. So this is a good option for those whose competition has more than 1,000 links. The report can also be downloaded to a CVS file like Excel. Many trail versions never allow you to download anything.
It is much better to start a link building program where you already know links have been obtained than just doing a Google search for Do Follow blogs. What a huge waste of time that one is. Those lists produced by doing a Google search are so very used and abused that they quickly become obsolete. I should know I have used many of them in the past. Blogs that end up on these lists often get sick of all the spammy posts that they switch back to a No Follow status. This problem is only getting worse.
Before you begin a link building program you should set some realistic goals. My personal goal is to acquire 100 links a day. I will not fulfill this goal today, as I have decided that my blog need some more attention. It isn’t important that you meet these goals every day. It is important that you have goals and that you try to fulfill them.
The old saying “if you don’t set goals you will surely never obtain them” is so true. The higher the goal, as long as it is realistic, means that you will be more successful than if you set easily achievable goals. The idea here is that 75% of 100 is much better than 75% of 50. I personally find achieving these daily goals very rewarding.
That was written a while back and I found that since I am no longer using blogs my link building success and daily volumes have dramatically improved. Still unless I was willing to spend lots of time on forums that wasn’t a realistic goal. The obtainable goal is closer to 60 a day.
Even if your goal is only 5 links a day it will have a positive effect over time. Link building, to be most effective needs to become a regular part of your marketing plan. Blogs especially, fold on a regular basis or they get tired of all the spam associated with being Do Follow and they return to No Follow. Those links that you had last year may need replacing this year.
Last year I lost a huge amount of links when Ning recently made profile in their network sites No Follow. That really hurt as I had way too many eggs in my Ning basket. I will have a hard time replacing them before I run my monthly ranking report on the first of November. It will be very interesting to see how much ground that we have lost.
As it turned out thousands of links were lost this way for me. A similar fate befell those who had been using the social media platform Kick Apps. Most sites using this software made all links No Follow. I mainly missed this one as I had chosen Ning as my link machine. The loss of Kick Apps really hit many link builders hard. You could drop links into video and picture description. The bio and other sections also allow links. If that were not enough you it offered bookmarking links as well.
The moral of these platform tails is this. Spread yourself around. Like someone who knows a stock portfolio you need to spread your assets around. It also looks like a more natural link pattern for the search engines.
Now, that you have a huge amount of resources available to you will want to record where you left comments hoping for a link. I would also recommend using a password manager program like RoboForm. This is an especially good option if you have to register on a blog to leave a comment. A better choice is creating a spread sheet or a Word document where you list the exact post where and when you made a comment.
Then you will want to return to these blogs a week or so later to verify if your comment was approved. If your comment was not approved then there is no reason to return to this blog. Simply delete these from your database.
You will also want to pay close attention to see if the blog has a comment policy. If it does, then do take the time to read it. I reject 85 to 90% of all comments left here because the commenter’s failed to pass our comment policy. I even get people commenting on the comment policy post and doing it wrong! If you want to have an effective link building program you absolutely must follow the comment policies. where you find one.
Finding a Comment Policy on this blog is easy on this blog as it appears along side the comment box. That often is not the case on most blogs. Many blogs never bother to write one so what should you do then? I simply observe the comments that are already appearing on the blog if those comments include keywords then it is a good bet that your comment will be approved if you do the same thing. If you only see names it is better to move on as a comment with keyword will not be approved.
It amazes me that all day long people leave comments here and never bother to read the comment policy. They also fail to notice that most comments approved do not include a link. I am a real big fan of doing things that will directly benefit this website. So leaving a comment that isn’t likely to get approved is a big waste of time for me. The difference between leaving a useful comment and a short comment is usually 30 seconds or less. So Why not take the time to leave a useful comment?
Also if you take the Scratch My Back Marketing approach and view comments as an advertisement for your site you will find the benefits very rewarding. It really comes down to do unto others as you would have them do to you! This isn’t pie in the sky stuff here. But it does require a certain level of common sense.
After all if you have gone through the paces to leave a comment why not take a little longer to do it right and be rewarded? I call that win/win marketing?
What say you?
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Geo-Targeted Geo-targeting SEO – Search Engine Optimization Services
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Casa Grande, Arizona City, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
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SEO – Search Engine Optimization Is A Numbers Game!
January 11, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization Is A Numbers Game!
SEO is as much a numbers game as anything else. Good basic SEO will only get you so far in the search rankings. We believe almost anyone with enough time and resources can obtain the first page of results for any search query. However, most companies do not have the funds or staff for such an undertaking. There are still many opportunities to reach the coveted first page of results.
Any successful SEO provider knows that if you go where the crowds aren’t you will be successful. That’s why so much effort goes into Keyword research. Keyword search, after all, is a billion dollar industry. You can look for long tail or obscure keywords to be successful. The huge benefit here is that using long tail search you have less sites competing for the keyword phrase that you have chosen, also your visitor is now highly targeted and ready for the sale.
A good example would be the search for “increased website traffic Tucson” There is no doubt that the person using this search query wants more traffic to their website and that it has a Tucson customer base.It just so happens that almost any day, if you did the search for “increased website traffic Tucson” you would find Tucson SEO Solutions in the #1 and #2 positions. We believe that you should practice what you preach or as we like to say if your going to talk the talk you have to walk the walk.
Many an SEO expert will read this and scoff, “That’s not a competitive search” and they are correct. However, it is the service that we provide and in our location. We should be at the top if we are any good at what we do. I am often amazed when I see companies offering SEO services and they can’t obtain first page rankings for themselves! This isn’t as uncommon as you might expect. We developed our keyword to reflect what we do and by our location. If you have a local business with a website you should be doing the same.
What say you?
Our Arizona Services:
SEO Arizona Google Places Services
Increase Website Traffic Phoenix Tucson
Local SEO Services Tucson Google Places Phoenix
Local Internet Marketing Tucson Phoenix Services
Google Places SEO Tucson Phoenix Mesa Scottsdale Glendale
Marana Sierra Vista Green & Oro Valley SEO Google Places Services
Geo-Targeted Geo-targeting SEO – Search Engine Optimization Services
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, New River, or Cave Creek, Arizona and beyond and you need Google Places SEO solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
My Video Marketing Adventure V 6
December 29, 2010
Welcome to the Google Places SEO blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
My Video Marketing Adventure V 6
I started producing training videos back in May of 2010. And it certainly has been an interesting adventure that I thought was worth sharing. I posted my first video to YouTube in July and I set about to learn how to market on YouTube. About once a month or so I have updated my experiences.
All in all, it was been a very fun experience. I had been a disc jokey at the young age of 13 so I was used to microphone. I just never liked how my voice sounded recorded. This really held me back from wanting to do videos. I have listened to far to many videos that I stopped because the announcer voice was to difficult tolerate.
But someone came along and threw some money my way to make some training videos about local SEO. Amazingly, as I started recording I noticed that my voice had matured over the years and I no longer found it offensive. Which is a very good thing.
Since I had never done video before I had to learn how to use editing software and other related programs. But the bigger challenge was learning the ropes at YouTube. I was fortunate that early on I discover a tool called Tube Toolbox. It automates a lot of the basic functions like making friends requests. It has been a God send for me.
One thing that I have learned is that YouTube is much like other social sites like Twitter. It takes a while to get any traction. Friend requests and followers are easier to come by after you already have amassed a few hundred or so. Now, I rarely use Tube Toolbox as I get friend requests almost daily. It also helps if you have actually uploaded some videos.
At the present time I have 5 videos on YouTube. Two are pure promotional videos and three are instructional. All of these videos are ranking on the first page of the search results for their markets. Of these 5 videos four target Local SEO and they are currently ranking 6, 7, 8, and 9.
The other video is the most recent and it targets Google Places SEO and it is currently ranking number 6. I also have acquired 46 channel subscribers and 446 friends. My videos have received 11 positive to only one negative vote. That really pleases me the most about this process. I also have had a bunch of comments left on my channel. And over 1200 people have at least started my videos. So far I have exceeded my expectations.
But this also opens the door for others to take verbal jabs at me. Two of my competitors have made negative comments about my videos or my YouTube presence in general. When I read this stuff it makes me wonder if my detractors have been taking their meds when they blogged about me.
As long as I am happy and exceeding my own expectations I am content to continue the path that I am on. I have already set some simple goals for the upcoming year. I want to learn to add background music and some other additional features to my videos. The goal is simply to produce a better product.
The one thing that has really surprised me is the amount of blogs that have embedded my videos. I haven’t bothered to attempt to count them all but its several dozen so far. The nice thing about having your video embedded is that it helps your video rank higher on YouTube.
I did a little experiment where I stopped promoting my videos for 30 days. The only activity for these videos was coming from others posting my videos on their sites. At the end of the trial period all of my videos moved up in the rankings. This was a real wow moment for me. Others we spreading my videos for me to my benefit. I find this to be an extremely rewarding experience.
My next challenge is to add a click able link to my videos on YouTube. I started the process earlier today. This means that I had to finally get an AdWords account with Google. I paid my five bucks. But I had experienced some problems placing my first ad. It was late and I was tired. My ad kept getting rejected. So I called it a day and will try again soon.
It’s not a real high priority for me. It’s just one of those bumps along my learning curve. It’s likely something little that I missed. So there it is folks V 6 after six months.
What say you?
Our Arizona Services:
SEO Arizona Google Places Services
Increase Website Traffic Phoenix Tucson
Local SEO Services Tucson Google Places Phoenix
Local Internet Marketing Tucson Phoenix Services
Google Places SEO Tucson Phoenix Mesa Scottsdale Glendale
Marana Sierra Vista Green & Oro Valley SEO Google Places Services
Geo-Targeted Geo-targeting SEO – Search Engine Optimization Services
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, New River, or Cave Creek, Arizona and beyond and you need Google Places SEO solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
