KML and Geo Sitemap Tool

I just came across a blog post on a tool to create KML files and geo sitemaps. For the uninitiated (which included myself up until 45 minutes ago) a KML file is what Google Earth, Google Maps, and a variety of other mapping programs use to store map information.

The idea is to use this tool to create files that you put on your website to get yourself on the map easier. Yet another trick of the trade to add to my toolbox.

I'm Thankful for Google Chrome

I downloaded Google's browser, Chrome, when it came out and over time it's become my browser of choice. I just found an online comic book by Scott McCloud that Google published explaining pretty much everything about Chrome that I love. Take a look and try Chrome out. It's great.

Google Changes Their Business Listing Quality Guidelines

Google made a change last week to their Business Listing Quality Guidelines. The big issue was that Google was requiring people to list their full legal business name as the company name, but they quickly reversed direction on that decision. Many companies don't actually do business under their legal name (I don't!) and requiring it on a Google listing may have been a step too far.

Another big change is that PO Boxes no longer count as physical addresses. I can see this really affecting how mobile businesses do their listings, especially in the lawn maintenance, locksmith, plumber, electrician, and repair industries. I have a few customers that I'll need to fix this for. There has to be an elegant way to address this issue for those kinds of customers. I guess we'll have to wait for Google to come up with it.

As always, pay attention to what Google wants and you'll get good results in your Local Search efforts.

Google Maps and free business local listings

The bottom line? Google is mapping the planet one place at a time and providing it for us in Place Pages. The information gathered in different ways, is enhanced, in typical Google fashion, by users around the globe making it more human, more useful. Can SMBs benefit? A Google SVP recently spoke about Maps and noted: “Everything is finally in place to enable small businesses to connect with customers online”.

These technologies and the competitive implications of Google’s moves to map everything including local businesses means that if you are not using the internet to YOUR business' full advantage today, you are simply missing out.

FREE ADVICE if you haven't claimed your Google local business listing already: watch this two minute video brought to you by Google to learn how. IT IS FREE!

Today in the US alone, there are almost 1billion searches with local intent from consumers which are ready to buy a product or service. Searches are getting longer, more granular. Down to the city or zip code, niche service, brand, model, or whatever your company sells.

Furthermore, geospatial information is the building block for the whole next generation of user experience from smart phones to virtual reality. More reason to do something now if you want to take advantage of emerging opportunities. It is not when you are going to do something for your business to BE FOUND...it is a matter of when.

We believe your business is #1 and businesslocallistings.com is 100% effective in getting it there. Visit our FAQs tab and I will show you how to get your local listing to the #1 spot. Our pricing (see Packages tab) is yet another reason why your business local listing can't wait.

Call me for a free consultation about how to make your business local listing #1...especially when a user queries for that specific brand you carry or any product or service you offer.

Increase visibility. Increase sales.

Get your SMB on the map today!

Michael Alfonso
Business Local Listings - South Florida
954-600-4066

web: www.businesslocallistings.com
email: malfonso@businesslocallistings.com

Google's Lucky 7-Pack

Going through local searches late last week, I noticed that the Google Map looked a little different. As I looked closer, I noticed that the map only had 7 spots on it as opposed to the usual 10.

However, my cousin was getting married on Friday, and, what with matrimonial festivities and all, I wasn't able to investigate it closer until Sunday and today.

What I've discovered is this. Yes, it appears that Google is moving to a smaller 7-pack map. The speculation is that they're doing this to make room for Local Listings Ads, a new type of advertising that Google recently rolled out in beta testing in California. Basically the ad allows businesses to buy a spot on the map and mark it with a blue marker!

I actually like the new look of the map. It's more compact and easier to read, we'll see how it integrates with Local Listings Ads once they make them available worldwide.

Official Google Blog: Place Pages for Google Maps: There are places we remember!

Official Google Blog: Place Pages for Google Maps: There are places we remember!

New Google Map / Local Listing Design

I'm in Google Maps every day as a part of my job promoting the hell out of Local Search and I came across an interesting change in Google Maps. When you click on "more info" from Google Maps, but not yet from the Google 10-pack, you get a different, more expanded version of the Local Listing. That's a screenshot of my own listing there on the right.

Highlights include:

• Visible Business categories
• Distance to the nearest major intersection
• Nearby bus stops! (They obviously don't know Tampa! Who uses the bus?)
• Full business description and a sample review
• Google Map of the location and a picture of the business from the street
• Expanded versions of tabs that you used to have to expand in the old style of listing including Details, Photos & Videos, Reviews, Web Pages, and User Content

I really like the new layout, let's see if they roll it out to all the local listings, or if it stays strictly on Google Maps.

Update: So I just found an article, and posted a link, identifying these as Google Place Pages. The official blog states that one exists for every spot on the map!

Matt Cutts of Google - How to Optimize Your Blog

Matt Cutts from Google breaks down exactly what you need to know to optimize your blog on Google. He breaks down everything from PageRank, to content, to how to naturally add in your keywords. Really great information and a must see for bloggers.

Google "Caffeine" Test Drive

Google put out a post announcing that they are allowing the public to test-drive their new "Caffeine" algorithms before they go live on the site. According to the post, the changes will allow Google to "push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions".

I tried it for a dozen or so of our customers and saw no discernable difference in Local Search although I saw some change in the organic results below the map. It looks like the changes will only affect SEO. I'll do some further investigation and report back anything interesting.

And finally testing my email to ping.fm.

Is now testing his text app to ping.fm.

Just activated my ping.fm account. This is a test.

Using Facebook for Your Business While Keeping Your Privacy

So I've been struggling with exactly how to use Facebook as a business tool instead of as a way to look at pictures of my friends' kids or find people I knew in high school. One of the problems inherent in Facebook is that all your worlds start to merge. Personal and business, past and present, close friends and just acquaintances. Do you really want your business associates to see pictures of you at the beach? Do you really want your family and friends to get your business pitches?

As an internet marketer I've bit the bullet and accepted that my networking contacts are going to be able to find me and see pictures of me swing dancing or out with my friends. That's fine, we live in an age where we can find out exactly what our neighbors paid for their house and if they've ever been arrested or not. However, you can still use Facebook to promote your business and keep some semblance of anonymity. Promote your business with a Facebook Fan Page.

You get most of the functionality of a normal Facebook page, but geared for business. If you're familiar with Facebook, you'll adapt to fan pages quickly. The main difference is that you get fans instead of friends and you put in business information instead of personal info. You get:

• Status Updates
• Wall Posts
• Links
• Pictures and video
• Notes
• Events

In addition you can:

• Get customer reviews
• Promote other pages
• Run ads on Facebook to promote your page
• Assign multiple people to manage your page

Even better, you can automatically update your page from your blog (as you'll see when I publish this). Lastly, the analytics that Facebook offers to Fan Page managers is outstanding. You get reports on fans and what kind of interactions they're performing with your page and whether your postings are effective or not. There's some really powerful stuff on here and I'm just delving into it myself.

If you've been wanting to get your business on Facebook, but you didn't want to get on yourself, this is the way to go. Become a fan of my page and I'll be happy to help you out myself.

Business Local Listings

Promote Your Page Too

Google Chrome OS - 2nd Half of 2010

Google just announced that they will be releasing an operating system based on their Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system. I've been using the Chrome browser since it's release and I really like it. It's fast and functional and is a great alternative to the ubiquitous IE.

I've been using Android on my G1 since January and I've really liked it. They put out an update every other month or so and it's been great, for a phone. Whether this can translate to a fully functional operating system is questionable, but I wish them luck. I'll definitely be trying it out.

Local Search Seminar - 7/9/09

I'm doing a seminar on Local Search at the Bayanihan Arts Center located at 14301 Nine Eagles Dr, Tampa, FL 33626 from 2 PM to 4 PM. The price is $25 before the event and $30 at the door.

I'll be going over:

1. What is Local Search?
2. How to Use Keywords
3. Google and the Local Business Center
4. Yahoo! Local
5. Bing (Formerly MSN Live)
6. Local Listing Directories and Industry Specific Directories
7. Building Citations

Join us to learn more about local search and how it affects you.

Bing, Bang, Boom

Microsoft launched their new search engine Bing last week. My first impression? It's visually stunning and looks to give Google some real competition.

I'm doing some research into it, focusing of course on how it's going to play in the local search industry. My focus has mainly been Google and Yahoo, but it looks like I'm going to have to pay attention to Bing as well!

I'll have a more detailed report for you once I've done some more research.

Check Your Local Search Rating

So I spent an exciting Saturday night researching new methods for optimizing local search and found a site that gives you a local search ranking! Very exciting stuff for someone who makes his living in local search.

Getlisted.org has a simple interface that allows you to enter in your business name and your zip code.

So I plugged in my own information "Business Local Listings" and my zip code "33606" and I got the following:

So I only have a 45% ranking because, although I've done my Google listing, I haven't yet sat down to do my Yahoo, MSN Live, or Best of the Web listings. It'll come as no surprise to a lot of business owners that I neglect my own company to take care of my customers.

You can even drill down further to see exactly what you need to do to increase your ranking, from adding photos to getting citations on other websites to getting reviews. All things that, coincidentally, I can help you with. Surprisingly, there's no mention of video, and I can't stress the importance of video enough.

So how do you rank? If you're not happy, I can help you out with it!

Feedburner, YouTube, Business Networking Life 3-in-1!

Here's a quick video that I did with my friend Joe Malinowski last week. His website is Business Networking Life. On it I'm discussing some of the benefits of Feedburner for your blogs.

Kathy Perry Presentation

Kathy Perry, Marketing and Web Coach, was the speaker at the TWBAonline Tampa Meetup last Thursday and provided an interactive presentation using her unique Marketing Tree Matrix process that reveals gaps in your strategic communications. The presentation was designed to provide a tool that will help businesses identify specific areas that may need to be "pruned or nurtured" in order to increase overall marketing effectiveness. Kathy covered 5 critical areas of marketing - Sales, Customers, Off-line Marketing, On-line Marketing and Community - and the various marketing tactics that can be used in each of those areas.

Some of the highlights of Kathy's presentation focused on improving strategic communications, identifying gaps in current marketing efforts, exploring new ways to get customers, and ideas on increasing customer satisfaction and retention while proactively educating customers.

You can check out Kathy's website at: www.kathyperry.com

I <3 Animoto

So I've been hearing a lot about Animoto at my networking events, but I didn't really understand what it was about. So I shot over there about 30 minutes ago. Here's how my 30 minutes went:

5 minutes - Read the brief instructions and register.
10 minutes - Choose and upload pics and music.
5 minutes - Compile the video.
5 minutes - Upload the video to Youtube.
5 minutes - Post this blog.

Here's what I got.

Sometimes It's Faster Than Others

It's not an easy thing to explain what I do in 1 minute. I started going to networking events a few months ago and at these meetings, we all give a 1 minute commercial on what we do. It's hard to stand out among all the website builders, pay per click guys, and search engine optimizers. The best way to show people what I do is to actually sit down with them and show them.

I met a guy at these meetings, Ronnie, who was a perfect candidate for an experiment. He's a sales guy for a local sports station and has also just started his own poop scooping and dog running business, Big Blue's Poop Scooping Services. I sat down with him on Tuesday to show him exactly what I do. I basically gave him a free hour and a half seminar on Google Local Listings and the Google map. We analyzed his keywords, we incorporated them into his description, chose categories, filled in his business info, and added in additional details. We verified it with Google over the phone and parted ways.

After that, I honestly forgot about it in the haze of getting my own business running. Follow up on emails? Check. Send out appointments? Check. Go over tomorrow's itinerary? Check. Phone calls? Check. Sleep? Not enough!

So I got up the next day and ran my rounds of appointments and meetings and emails and phone calls. I ended up at the Westshore FNI and we're in the "Attitude of Gratitude" portion of the meeting when Ronnie thanks me for sitting down with him then announces, I'm #2 for "Pooper Scooper Tampa FL" and I'm the only one showing up for "Poop Scooping Tampa FL". I'm shocked. I usually ask my clients to give me 6-8 weeks for results. I've never had results like that in 24 hours, and I'd never guarantee it, but it does show the power of correctly filling out your Google Listing. Sometimes, it is faster than others!

Welcome To The Internet Adventure

Welcome to my Internet Adventure. It's been an exciting few months for me, full of twists and turns and ups and downs. I have re-invented myself as an internet marketing entrepreneur and I feel like I've found what I'm supposed to do. In the process, I've had to re-visit skills and experiences that I've built over my lifetime. I feel like I'm in a unique position where I've had an opportunity put in front of me that was tailor-made... for me! But that's an entire blog post in and of itself.

My company, Business Local Listings, has had great success, starting in the Tampa Bay market, in placing our customers on the map, the Google Map. I've learned quite a bit about the changing faces of the internet in general and Google in particular. Through research and hard work and some old-fashioned trial and error, we've figured out what works and what doesn't to get a company on the local map.

It's been an adventure. Come share it with me.