Prior to this announcement Google rolled out a premium version of Google Analytics for Enterprise customers. At $150,000 per year, it’s a little out of reach for the average small business.

Bottom line, Google is a publicly traded company and their responsibility to their shareholders is to make more money. Period. However they choose to do that is up to them.

It has been speculated that this move will drive up click-through costs for Adwords ads, which it may. But I think that many people are missing the simplicity of this move and the impact it can have to Google’s bottom line.

According to Builtwith.com, as of the writing of this post, there are almost 15 million websites using Google Analytics. Now, this is purely speculation on my part, but let’s say that half of those would be willing to pay $10 per month to receive the keyword data that is now only available to Adwords users. That’s an additional $75 Million per month or $900 Million per year in additional revenue from this one simple move.

I already knew that some of the smartest people on the planet work for Google but this move, in my opinion, is downright brilliant!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

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There are literally hundreds of social media websites available online today. In fact, besides all of the official “social media” sites, there are literally millions of sites that have integrated social sharing options.

Arguably, the top 3 social media sites today are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, with the new Google+ gaining ground fast.

So, the next step to getting your online house in order is to get your social media presence set up and optimized.

Facebook

Although Facebook was originally set up for individuals, they opened things up to businesses a few years ago. From a business perspective you can set up a Facebook page for your business so you can separate your personal life from your business life. Setting up a page is pretty simple. Facebook has even created a site called Facebook for Business which will help you not only with Pages, but Ads, Sponsored Stories and the Facebook platform.

According to the site there are essentially four steps to growing your business with Facebook pages; 1) build your page, 2) engage your customers, 3) grow your community, and 4) learn and grow. For more indepth help with your pages, they have created a guide called Building Your Business with Facebook Pages (pdf opens in a new window) that talks about strategy, best practices, encouraging fan participation and building connections.

For some real world examples check out this monster post about optimizing your Facebook pages from Lori Taylor at Social Caffeine.

Twitter

Twitter is really a micro-blogging platform that allows you to follow others you are interested in and they can follow you back. Twitter, unlike Facebook, allows you to follow people without becoming their friend. For this reason Twitter is a great place to begin your social media journey. It’s been likened to a cocktail party. You find people that are having conversations you are interested in and you listen. When you have something of value to add you can reply and begin a conversation with the people you are following. In turn, they can follow you back and you can start to build the relationship from there.

Hubspot recently released a new ebook called How To Use Twitter for Business – An Introductory Guide (you’ll need to provide a little bit of information to download this one). This guide includes in introduction to the basics and terminology used with Twitter and goes on to show you ways to optimize your profile and then helps explain how you can use Twitter to develop and promote your brand, interact with your customer base, track what people are saying about your brand, create buzz for upcoming events, promote content on your blog, develop relationships and generate sales leads.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn was actually created as a business networking site and has done a very good job of sticking to their core business plan. There are still some best practices you can implement to get the most out of your participation on this platform.

LinkedIn has put together a series of short videos to show you how to use LinkedIn to grow your business. These videos look at how different types of companies can use LinkedIn to get exposure for your company, connect with others, spread your message and build a team of world-class professionals.

To build on that, last week I read an article from Search Engine Land on How to Use LinkedIn to Improve Organic Visibility. It shows step-by-step how to get the most benefit from having a company page on LinkedIn.

Google+

Google+ is the new kid on the block when it comes to social networks, but it is, of course, a part of the Google family of products and services, so it has a lot of strength behind it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be the best. We’ve seen products from Google come out with a lot of fanfare and then dissipate just a quickly. However, to date, Google+ is the fastest growing social network ever launched.

A friend and social media expert, Shama Kabani of Marketing Zen has put together Google Plus: A How-To Guide (pdf opens in a new window) that will provide you with a quick and concise overview of this new platform.

As of the writing of this article, Google+ is still by invitation only. So, if you’d like to try Google+ send me your name and email and I’ll send you an invitiation and we can connect there.

If you have anything you would like to add, please do so in the comments below.

Still have questions? Put those in the comments too and I’ll be glad to answer them.

To your success!
Ken Partain

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• Google Rolls Out Social Search
• Search Engine Optimization – Clean Code
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• Is Google Adwords Still The Top Marketing Tool?
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This is for you if you’re an entrepreneur (or one in the making) …

We are the dreamers.
The visionaries.
The doers.

We are your neighbors.
Your friends.
Or your family.

We pursue our dreams, rather than letting them die a slow death.
We’ve learned to ignore the negative people in our lives.

We know we are different.
And we relish in it.

We are unemployable.

We are good people.

We are writers.
Artists.
Technicians.
Directors and creatives.

We have a disdain for bureaucracy and red tape.

We love to build and enjoy our creations.

We are most definitely off the wall.
…Yet the most sane of them all.

We are passionate about our trade.
Yet we realize most people would never leave the ‘security’ of a job to live their dreams like we do.

We are the biggest employers out there.
We stick to it, amidst economic turmoil and media frenzied trash talking.

Thank the entrepreneurs that you know.
Tell them to keep on plugging and building.

Embrace the entrepreneurial spirit.
We are the future.

Troy White

Troy White is a top marketing coach, consultant & direct response copywriter based in Calgary, Canada. He has a powerful approach
to growing small businesses and entrepreneurial run ventures on a budget. His free Cash Flow Surges blog shares tons of great strategies
at http://www.blog.smallbusinesscopywriter.com

You also get an excellent case study of marketing done exceptionally well, The Million Dollar Lobster Report, when you sign up for updates on his blog.

Discover how two young twenty-something year old brothers turned a simple lobster sale into a million dollar business in just 3 months!
http://www.blog.smallbusinesscopywriter.com

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We’ve all heard about the law of reciprocity in business where you give something away for free and “maybe” people will be more inclined to buy something from you. While you may not be giving your services away for free, you may be inclined to keep cutting your prices because you want to endure yourself to clients. You think that if the client “likes you more” they’ll be more inclined to keep doing business with you or refer you other clients.

We all want to be liked, but when it comes to business it’s just as important to be respected. You may be liked a great deal, but if you don’t earn the respect of your customers, you may end doing a lot of work that never pays for itself. In the end you’re likely to be working more and resenting the free services that you’re providing. You could become a business doormat where people think they can get something for very little.

If you want clients to like you more then you need to focus less on being the “good guy that gives it all away” and more on providing outstanding services that clients have no problem paying for. You need to remind yourself that it’s not a matter of cost, it’s a matter of the value that people place on the services they are receiving.

If you’re feeling like you need to cut costs just to keep some clients happy then you need to ask yourself these two questions: 1) Am I servicing the wrong clients-if they can’t afford what I’m providing? 2) Are the services that I’m providing, not equal to what I’m advertising them to be?

It’s very important to make sure that the quality of your services stays equal to the prices that you’ve set. First you have to do your market research early on and decide what your services are worth. You need to also figure out what your time is worth in providing those services. Set your prices and stick to your prices. Until you’re entirely clear with yourself on knowing what those numbers are, you may always be giving some things away for nothing.

You can’t operate a business hoping that the people you’re dealing with will “do the right thing” and give something back when you give something for below cost. You’d be amazed how many people will take what your provide, feel they are entitled to it with no intention of “giving back”. Why should they? You’ve set yourself up to be the expert in what you’re providing. People believe that if you say something is only worth X amount of dollars, then they figure that’s what it was worth. Besides, you can’t give your client the job of score keeping. They never asked for this task. People are way too busy to remember that because you gave them a discount they need to provide you with a referral and stick with you. They have too many other things to think about.

It’s great if you help someone out from time to time-or give a client a discount on occasion because maybe they’ve just hit hard times. I’m simply asking you not to make a habit of shortchanging yourself because you’ve yet to believe in the absolute value of your work. I want you to be kind, fair and ethical with your clients, but also with yourself as a business owner.

Jonathan Goldhill is an Executive Business Coach in Los Angeles. He has been consulting, coaching and training small business owners for more than 20 years. He has worked with companies large and small to increase revenues and profits. To learn more please visit http://www.thegrowthcoachla.com/.

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This is a great opportunity as a small business owner to get more involved in Foursquare and promote your business. It allows you to interact just like individual users as far as checking in, posting tips, adding friends and just connecting at a deeper level with your followers.

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Last time I told you that there are several things you can do to improve your search results in mobile search. The second step to getting your online house in order is to analyze your very own website. Now, don’t be frightened by that notion because I’m going to share with you a few tools that will make this step pretty simple.

Your Site in Different Browsers

First, look at your site in multiple browsers. The main ones are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and, for those on a Mac, Safari. Now, look at your site on your mobile phone. Ask friends with different types of mobile devices to look at it and see what it looks like on as many devices as possible. How does it look? Is everything showing up correctly? Are all the images and formatting in place?

Update Your About Us Page

Second, take a look at your “About Us” page. Read…Every…Word. Make sure that all the information is accurate and up-to-date. You will also want to include links on that page to your social media profiles. This helps to tie your entire online presence together and makes it easy for people to find you.

Check for Spelling and Grammar

Third, check all of the pages of your site for spelling and grammar. Your website is supposed to be a reflection of your businesses and you want your business to have a professional image, right? Well, poor grammar and typos throughout your site don’t convey a lot of trust to me. One or two, here and there might be ok, but when they are on every page, no way.

A good, free tool you can use to spell check your entire site is called CheckDog.com. They will scan up to 100 pages of your site, which should be plenty for most of our readers, and provide you a report of all the likely, possible and unlikely spelling errors on your site. You will need to provide a valid email address to get the full report.

Do Your Keyword Research

Fourth, do some keyword research using Google’s Free Keyword Research Tool. We’re getting a little more advanced here but this step is still easy enough to do on your own. Find the keywords that you feel most people searching for your product or service would use. Then look at how much search volume your keyword phrase has and how much competition.

You are looking for phrases that have relatively high search volume and low competition. I know, that sounds like your going to be searching for a needle in a haystack, but I am sure you will find some gems you can use.

Optimize Your Site

Fifth, go through your site and optimize it for the keywords you found in the previous step. You may need to write some new content if you don’t already have a page on your site directly relating to each phrase you found. Each page should focus on one keyword phrase. If they are closely related you may be able to work in two or three.

Now, from an SEO perspective you need to look at a lot more data. The best, free tool I have found to do that is WebsiteGrader.com. The tool will go through and grade your site and show you how it compares to your competitors and what you can do to improve your grade.

That’s it for today. Did I miss anything? Do you have a comment or thought you would like to share? Let me know in the comments section below.

If you need help with all of this check out our SEO Plans or give me a call and let’s talk.

To your success,
Ken Partain
512-651-2963

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Couple that with the fact that people with smart phones carry them EVERYWHERE! They are checking in on Foursquare, updating their Facebook profile, taking pictures and videos and searching for your products and services. Can they find you? If not, there are several things you can do to improve your chances of getting found. Today I’m going to talk about just one, Your Google Places Page.

Your Google Places Page

Google is on a quest to completely dominate local search. And they are giving priority in search to those profiles that have been claimed and optimized. You see, Google is in the business of selling ads around their search results. The better those search results, the more people will continue to use them. The more searches they get, the better their chances are of you clicking on a paid ad. Ca-ching! Tha’t money in the bank for Google.

When I say that your Google Places page needs to be optimized, I mean that it has a thorough business description; your company name, address and phone number are accurate and match the multitude of online business databases; it includes the brands and products you carry; it includes your hours of operation and service area; and ideally it has a short video so people can get to know you and your company better. Because people like to buy from people they know, like and trust.

Here’s your assignment for today. Do a search on your smart phone or borrow someone else’s smart phone and search for your industry in your town. For example, search for accountants in Round Rock, TX. If your Google Places page is not listed on the front page then get to work. You can claim your Google Places page here – http://www.google.com/places/.

If you need help, call me. I can help you get there. And it won’t cost you nearly as much as you think. After all, how much are you losing now to your competitors that are already on the front page?

To your success,
Ken Partain
512-651-2963

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This year’s report includes feedback from 34 prominent bloggers and local search experts.  Each factor is graded three ways; 1) the importance of the factor, 2) whether the factor has increased or decreased in importance since last year’s report, and 3) how closely the 34 participants agreed on each factor.

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The reason for this decline is a recent emphasis by the major search engines to not only serve up the most relevant search results, but the most recent as well.  And if  your site isn’t updated with current, relevant information then you’re losing the game to a site that is.

The sad part is that this is something that could be fixed with very little effort and very little expense.

There are a number of excellent, open-source (free!) content management systems available to the small business owner.  If you have some technical skills you can make the switch yourself.  Otherwise, you’ll need to hire someone to help migrate your site to a new platform and teach you how to add new content quickly and easily.

Costs for this can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars depending on how many pages you currently have on your site, what functionality you want and whether or not you use a template or have a new design created for you.

Here are a few of the top open-source content management systems available today.

• WordPress (my favorite)
• Joomla
• Drupal
• Dot Net Nuke
• Expression Engine

I’m sure there are lots of others that are very good but these are the ones we have had experience with.

And if you need some help converting your site give me a call.  I’ll be glad to take a look at it and give you a quote.

Photo Credit: Dinosaur Jr. by desdeaquinet on Flikr

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