Small Business SEM

Confession: Putting together a 90-freakin’-minute presentation on local search is a pain in the you-know-what.
However: I’m really looking forward to the presentation and think it’ll be valuable information for attendees. My plan is to give what will amount to 3-4 separate presentations, breaking for Q&A in between each topic, all the while trying [...]

In the days after the SMX West conference last month, I recapped the “Local Search & Blended Results” session here on SBS, pointing out a comment from the Yahoo! speaker about the non-impact of reviews and ratings on the three local business listings that show up in Yahoo!’s Local Shortcut.
Problem is, I got the [...]

It’s no secret that customer reviews can have a big impact on sales and conversions for businesses of any size. But getting customers to leave reviews in the right places isn’t an easy proposition.
My friend Michael Jensen and his company, Solo SEO, hopes to change this with the introduction of Leave Feedback:
LeaveFeedback.org helps local businesses [...]

Quick story: My wife e-mailed me last night with a simple question:
“Do you know what an Alexa rating is?”
I told her I did, then found out why she was asking. Turns out that a real estate writer recently suggested in an otherwise excellent article on the Bloodhound Realty Blog (which is about the [...]

In response to news this week that affiliate marketers appear to be placing affiliate URLs into prominent hotel listings on Yahoo! Local, a Yahoo! official confirmed today that they’re “looking into it,” and suggested the situation may not be as bad as the reports make it appear to be.
Brian Gil, Director of Product Management for [...]

Since I’m not on Twitter, I’ll pass along a couple notes the old-fashioned way…..
More on SES New York
In addition to my previous post here on SBS about the SES New York conference last week, I’ve written up something with a little more detail on the video/small business session my wife and I attended. You can [...]

Dear Google,
It would be more un-evil if you would make it easier to opt out of that new data sharing “feature” (your word) that you recently added to Google Analytics. I tend to be much more forgiving of you than some of my friends, so please let me share a few suggestions.
Let’s start with this [...]

It’s always fun to get good questions from readers via my contact Matt McGee page, and even more fun when the question comes from someone whose blog I read regularly and enjoy.
Rich Brooks, who writes the small business-oriented flyte blog, emailed earlier this week with this question about marketing on Flickr in light of the [...]