http://www.marybowling.com search engine optimization by mary bowling Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:17:07 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Frazier Miller, the General Manager of Yahoo!Local, talked about ROBO - which stands for Research Online, Buy Offline - in his keynote presentation at the SMX Local Mobile Conference in San Francisco last week. I don't think Miller (correct me if I'm wrong, please) coined the term, but I'll certainly ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/research-online-buy-offline/ I just returned from the SMX Local/Mobile Conference in San Franciso and it was awesome! In nearly every session, every speaker shared good, actionable advice on how to improve business presence and rankings in Local and/or Mobile Search. There was very little fluff and just a few of the dreaded sales ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/smx-local-mobile-conference-2008/ My current cell phone is weak at the big hinge. Something that used to click and snap it shut isn't doing it's job any more. There's a little too much wiggle and play in the joint. I keep waiting, even hoping, that it will break in two and I'll finally have an ... http://www.marybowling.com/uncategorized/i-want-an-iphone/ In doing research for my upcoming presentation at SMX Lo/Mo in San Francisco this week, I examined the data in dozens of website trackers trying to find trends related to Local and Mobile search among Blizzard's travel clients. I began with some preformed opinions as to what worked and what didn't. Some of the questions I asked ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/case-studies-local-mobile-search/ David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors Survey has really made a splash in the world of SEO. In case you're not familiar with it, David surveyed 20 Local Search experts, including me, to get their opinions on which factors most likely enter into the ranking algorithms for Google Maps and ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/local-search-ranking-factors/ There are a few news items in Local Search that I'm pretty excited about: SMX Local/Mobile Conference - I'll be presenting on Chris Silver Smith's panel on Case Studies in San Francisco in July. If you've never attended this conference, you're really missing out on the bleeding edge of Local and ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/upcoming-events-local-search/ Ads in the organic listings? You're probably thinking I'm crazy. "There aren't ads in the organic area of the Search Engine Results Pages - those are naturally ranked listings", is what I imagine you saying. But wait... Back up and think about it, not from an Search Engine's point of view, but from ... http://www.marybowling.com/on-page-optimization/organic-ads/ Universal Business Listing, the brain child of Chris Travers and Doyal Bryant, is, in their own words: ...a service that allows you to enter your critical business information one time and have it posted to all the major Online Yellow Pages, Search Engines and 411 directory assistance. Their tagline is "Enter your business once, be ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/universal-business-listing/ The accuracy of the online information presented to searchers about local businesses is a critical concern for those who provide it. This includes all the various Internet Yellow Pages, the Local Search Engines (including the big boys, like Google Maps) and the multitude of social/local and new/local websites such as ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/local-business-profiles/ Local.com is a Local Search Engine, and according to Borrell Associates(Dec 07), it's the fast growing Local Search Engine on the internet. Searchers go here to look up information about local businesses at the rate of over 10,000,000 unique visitors each month who search a total of 32,000,000 times. While this ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/local-dot-com/ Anyone who's heard of Wordtracker has likely heard of John Alexander.  Recently, John did a very through point-by-point comparison of these two professional keyword research and analysis tools. He evaluated them head to head on 11 factors and declared a winner in each area: Keyword forensics - Word tracker KEI effectiveness (competition) - Equal Reports ... http://www.marybowling.com/on-page-optimization/wordtracker-keyword-discovery-comparison/ There are billions of web pages online. How do people find the businesses they may be interested in doing business with in that incredibly dense, tangled jungle of information? The most obvious answer is "search" - they search for what they want and the most relevant answers are presented to them ... http://www.marybowling.com/uncategorized/social-websites/ Localeze's Gib Olander characterizes Local Search into two categories- recovery search and discovery search. Recovery search is when a searcher is looking for a specific business. They may or may not recall it's name. If they do, it should be easy to find. However, this is not always the case. The name ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/recovery-and-discovery-in-local-search-2/ A tagline is a short descriptor of a business that helps with its branding. It can be a motto, philosophy, mission, vision statement or a purpose. It can be a memorable or humorous saying or one that defines your organization or gives it a personality. It can really be just about ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/taglines-why-you-need-one-2/ Localeze is a data repository for local business information.  Their database includes about 16 million listings for enterprises in the United States.  Localeze draws, verifies and enriches their data from: More than 4,000 telephone directories Web site crawls Authorized dealer lists Info provided by partners, such as cable operators, directory assistance sources, telephone companies, ad agencies, etc. Merchant ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/localeze-information/ Here are some recent stastics about the Internet Yellow Pages for TMP Directional Marketing, a respected agency that specializes in Local Search: The internet as a whole is the source most often used to find local business information. However, the print Yellow Pages is the single most used source. Ironic, isn't ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/statistics-iyps/ The first Search Engine Strategies Training Workshops held in Denver on May 6th was definitely a hit. Not only did marketers from the Denver area attend, but I also met people from Minnesota, Indiana, New Mexico, New Jersey and, yes, even 2 people from Ireland! SES conference czar, Stewart Quealey, and ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/ses-training-workshop-in-denver-a-hit/ Take advantage of this free whitepaper download at Blizzard Internet Marketing: SEO for Wordpress Blogs .  Fellow SEO Carrie Hill and I learned it all the hard way while setting up blogs, optimizing them and training clients how to use them. Take advantage of what we learned and save yourself a lot of time and ... http://www.marybowling.com/blogs/seo-for-wordpress-blogs/ It seems like the only thing everyone can agree on regarding Local Search is that it is a highly fragmented space that presents a unique challenge for small to medium businesses. In the past, all it took was a yellow pages ad, but now these same enterprises must have a good online presence, ... http://www.marybowling.com/local-search-optimization/local-search-challenge/ Don't miss this download of a free whitepaper I wrote for Blizzard Internet Marketing: Search Engine Optimization For Images and Videos You'll find lots of helpful tips on how to get your images and videos to rank in Image Search, Video Search and in the Universal Results. http://www.marybowling.com/videos/whitepaper-seo-videos-images/