(The Los Angeles Lakers are 2010 NBA Champions with an 83-79 win over the Boston Celtics.)
As shown by the riots outside the Staples Center last night after the Lakers win, local fans get pretty excited about their team. But does public excitement translate into positive reviews of these franchises in Google Maps? Actually, no. As of this moment, the Celtics only have 1 Google review and the Lakers have 2. They’re all 5-stars, but this is still unacceptable, fans!
Go out and show your favorite local sports team support with a glowing review on Google Places (fka Google Maps). You could liken yourself to a sideline recruiter.
As many of you know, Upright’s Local Search specialists test caffeine-positive.
They track weekly changes in the evolving Local Search landscape to best serve clients. See, many new opportunities are just now arising for businesses to succeed locally, online. Search engine centers like Google Places and Yahoo! Local constantly add new data features — like the ability to define service area and post coupons per location.
Our watchful eye is meeting great results, in our clients’ Local rankings as well as validation from experts in our industry.
SEO guru David Mihm released the 2nd Annual “Local Search Ranking Factors” report June 7, 2010. In it, over 30 experts rank 69 qualities of a local business listing as more helpful or harmful to Local Search success. (Local Search success could be defined as ‘top search engine rankings for keyword searches performed in a specific local area’).
Many of us at Upright Communications rely heavily on Google Help Forums to ask questions about Google services such as Gmail, to suggest changes to services that we’d like to see and to even to discuss results we’ve seen with other webmasters. Google Help is monitored by Google employees and often answered by them.
In most cases, when we use Google Help, it’s not because of an emergency.. Unfortunately for this groom- it was!
What can we learn from this?
Quadruple check your wedding invitation before you send it.
A Google employee does answer you back in Google Help Forums- so don’t hesitate to ask.
Not too many people are going to be showing up at our friend Mike’s wedding.
As a big LOST fan, I was a bit unsure as to how I felt about the ending. There were a lot of questions left unanswered about the Island itself, but the lives (and deaths) of the characters were pretty well explained. Still, I’m not sure it was the perfect ending. Luckily for all of us, there were some alternative endings presented on the Jimmy Kimmel show after the LOST finale. Check them out and see if they are more satisfying for you:
So I’m a coupon freak, I’ll admit it. The thrill of saving a few bucks is pretty awesome. And popular coupon sites like Groupon and Cincy Savers have introduced me to all sorts of new stuff that I never would have tried without the allure of saving a couple bucks while doing it. Now I’m hooked on all sorts of stuff that I never knew I needed until I had a coupon for it!
When I heard that Groupon, a coupon site that offers a great daily deal in select cities, was challenging one lucky winner to live off Groupons for an entire year, I seriously considered entering the contest. Yes, I did. Stop laughing. Ok seriously… stop laughing. But I love my clients too much to abandon them for an entire year in search of the ultimate coupon-ing experience. Ok… you’re still laughing. I can hear you.
Well, Josh Stevens was the lucky guy that gets to give up his entire life for a whole year and is taking on this thrilling challenge! His entry video was a sure winner – check it out below, and prepare to laugh hysterically. Josh started his journey on May 10th, and according to his Twitter Feed, he is in Cincinnati right now! So Josh – enjoy your stay in Cincinnati. We wish you luck in our own little awesome Friday Funk style and will be watching your every Groupon-fueled move on LiveOffGroupon.com.
With over 160 million pages on Facebook, you may find it hard to stand out among your business competition. Fortunately, we have recommendations that do the trick:
Change Default Landing Tab
Facebook allows for you to choose which profile tab your fans and potential fans land on. So instead of having users see your wall first thing, you can now have them land on a unique part of your profile – like the “No Junk” tab shown below. http://www.facebook.com/chipotle
Start Contests
If your business allows, start a contest that engages Facebook users to participate. You can offer giveaways, coupons or even free stuff as an incentive to get more people to “like” your page. See below for our sample “Contests” tab, which was created using FBML. http://www.facebook.com/snappytomatopizza
Engage Weekly
It is very important that you interact with your friends, once a day or at least several times a week if you’re short on time. Post stories, comment to wall posts, tag fans in photos & allow them to add their own photos to add more value to your Facebook community. See an example of “Fan Photos” below. http://www.facebook.com/allthingscupcake
And finally….
Be Creative
Below are a variety of ways to display your Facebook page as inviting:
Add Facebook Markup Language (FBML, as referenced above) to your page
Post a memorable avatar (profile picture)
Ask your fans questions that may or may not pertain to your business. For example: “Who is the best baseball team, The Reds or The White Sox?” The point is to engage your fans and get them to be part of your community.
Follow our suggestions, keep up with your fans and do your best to stay unique…and you will create a successful Facebook page.
Everyday at Upright Communications, we walk up what feels like a million stairs, open the hallway door, walk past the fake plants, enter our “think tank” and begin a hard days work. However, the other morning, we had quite a different experience.
After we made it to the top of Mt. Everest, we were confronted by a figure in the hallway [drum roll please]…. The Matador.
I don’t know about you, but we made it a point to have a lot of fun with the new addition.
We feel safer now that the matador is patrolling the hallway.
Look past the tee shirt– Google principle engineer Matt Cutts is legit.
In the video below, Cutts explains the phenomenon of continuous changes to Google’s “algorithm”, stating that it was updated between 350 and 400 times–in batches– during the year 2009. Talk about constant improvement. Search Engine Watch defines algorithm as “the technology that a search engine uses to deliver results to a query. Search engines utilize several algorithms in tandem to deliver a page of search results or keyword-targeted search ads.”
What can we learn from this? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is like trying to hit a moving target. You can’t be precise enough in your efforts to affect an exact ranking because the algorithms change every day. Even if you were able to figure out an algorithm and make a change on your site, the algorithm would be different by the time you uploaded your changes.
We do our best by not trying to focus too much on efforts that cause us to try and hit this moving target- focusing on hitting a moving target won’t work. We have to use our knowledge, experiences, and best practices.
While the algorithms change, there will always be a place for good content & good user experience. Obsessing on where to put a keyword in a heading tag is not as important as building the bigger picture- creating useful content that attracts visitors and links.
<Here’s a little tip.> When Upright is developing a new website, our team runs multiple reports to define site keywords. <It gets more interesting!> Recently one of our team noticed the term “2010″ appearing as a popular search term modifier. For example, we can see that roughly 132,000 people have searched “tornado 2010″ so far this year. <Who cares?> You can:
Do not manipulate website content to include the term “2010″ needlessly. But if you have a timely product– a new business, one that follows a shifting market, one that is affected by ‘style’, or one whose industry could make big news– mention the current year in blog entries and news items.
Nearly 300 million people used “2010″ as part of their search term this March, 2010. Think about how timely and current that action is in your industry, and decide if this tip is relevant. <Where should we add “2010″?> Here:
Blog (#1) Make sure your blog entries include the full date of entry publishing.
Website Resources Date research, trends, or news oriented items throughout your website.
Events Each place you promote an event or new product/service–in a website News section, Facebook page, even in the filename of a graphic representing the event–use the full date or current year.
Press Releases Find ways to use the current year in a news release (beyond just the date of the news item), by mentioning recent awards, new locations, performance indicators, or other happenings specifically.
A lot of us have been driving for a while now and may have a speeding ticket or two. I know I do. To make myself feel a little better about breaking the law & being punished for it, I found that 1 in 6 people will receive a speeding ticket this year. That does make me feel better, but what you are about to see, made me feel a lot better. At least I was not “tricked” into slowing down- I just saw the police car a little too late.
Rather than using speed radars or cameras to catch a speeder, cities in Eastern Canada have devised an inexpensive, sly way to get their drivers to not go so fast. Check out the photos below to see what kind of trickery they have come up with.
