It was interesting to see this question )below( asked as a comment to a recent article on Foursquare that I was reading. "I need to know my ROI on implementing another piece of social media? )referring to Foursquare as "another piece of social media." There are several things about it that I would like to rip apart, but the kinder, more gentle, side of me will just "address" them )and try to educate(, because its obvious some educating needs to happen. I mean,

AuthorityLabs is simple yet extensive seo software that's been around for about a year now. The software provides daily ranking data, as well as link data for any page or domain from multiple sources. Lately they've been integrating new data sources so that you can get exact match search volume numbers for every keywords in your account, for example: Recently, they just launched the ability to track and report on domains or pages ranking within local packs .

Talk about the perfect trifecta - the seamless blend of social media, local and offline marketing - the " Real Joe " of  Joe's Real BBQ )a local business owner here in Arizona( understands social media better than any one in my area )IMO( and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about a recent promotion by his business. I bring this up because I am always hearing about local businesses not using social media, or not getting it,

I have had many opportunities to chat all things local with my good friend Will Scott, and just the other day we were at it again.  We were talking about some of the most common questions we are always asked by small business owners in regards to local marketing online.  I wanted to take the time and put them down on paper for everyone.  I felt this would be a good venue to get the answers out there.  Here goes my interview with Will Scott of Search Influence . 1.

For those of you that do not know Chuck , he has a great deal of experience with geo games as well and other geo apps, local search and marketing, and is not only a marketer but a heavy engaged user of all the services he talks about. I wanted to interview him about businesses using local social networks such as FourSquare, )because he is a very active user( and help share some insight to those business owners wondering how to use.

I noticed a simple tweet the other day that prompted me to write this post. )Although, this subject has been on my mind for sometime now.( The timing is perfect, when you consider the fact that Yelp is also pushing out some new features on their iPhone App. So, what in the world is this post about? I'll get there. Bear with me. If you are like me, you probably hate FourSquare )mainly because I hate seeing annoying 4sq tweets in my stream(. But,

I want to get you thinking the way I am on this one, so bear with me for a moment. I want you to imagine yourself moving into a brand new area that you are completely unfamiliar with. You have brand new neighbors, and there is not a familiar face anywhere. You don't know if your new neighbors have kids for your kids to play with, or if you would even want them to. So the process begins, you meet your neighbors, you gain trust and eventually are part of the neighborhood BBQs.

I have a little something to say about this topic, because I have built 3 of my own successful e-tail brands from the ground up. Each one of these brands were built solely via the Internet. Today, 1/4 of our daily traffic to these sites comes from searches looking for our actual brand name in search. So, this brand creating topic is a big deal and can equate to huge money for those building brand correctly!

Chris and I just want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We look forward to an amazing year in 2009, and hope we can keep bringing you up to date and informative articles, case studies and ideas in the SEO industry. Again - here's hoping everyone has an amazing 2009 and thanks for a great 2008!

I love swimming, and I practically live in the pool from May - Nov. so when i was asked by my friends at Presidential Pools what kind of things their local Arizona swimming pool company could do to go viral - I had some great ideas! I am in the process of finishing up my landscaping and everything around my pool, so I have been looking at design after design and trying to come up with something amazing. While doing all that - I have come across some pretty amazing pools,

For today's viral marketing idea Friday post I am answering a viral question from a reader. I think there is much potential with this one. Here is the question: Hi Matt, I'm opening a new company with a friend of mine, and I am pretty sure its the oldest and most boring business ever, plus its advertising is abused all the way' Limo services. Its based in Stamford CT, and I'm putting some ideas together along with a web site. Do you think this business deserves a post?

I am sorry that its been a few Fridays since the last post, but things )as always( have been crazy hectic. I am sorry because that is no excuse, but its a real one. A few weeks ago I ran into a friend that just launched a chandler house cleaning business and we got to talking about different things she could do online to drive more traffic to her website and of course viral marketing came up!

Last week, I got this viral marketing question in the form of a comment - I am building a new web application that sends reminders in the form of text messages, emails and voice messages to subscribers. The idea originated from my wife's situation, being a soccer mom and everything, and having four kids, its hard sometimes to keep track with all the practices and games' so she either carry a notebook with her all the time, or she checks her emails. To make a story short,

Luckily I have never lost any info inside any of my blogs, but I also credit my technology background and understanding that websites need to be backed up )and backing all mine up( to never losing any info. But what about the people who are less technical and using blogging software from websites like Blogger, or Wordpress for family blogs? If this is you, and you did lose your blog, or these companies go out of business, how much of your life would you be saying goodbye to?

This week it seems like I have had so many conversations with people about the simple things they can do to their website to make it social media optimized, and because of that I wanted to take that approach with today's viral media post. Has anyone )other Internet marketers( else noticed how good CNN is doing lately with embracing social media and trying to connect with the users of it? You can follow them on Twitter , Facebook and more.

There are so many "geeky" technology )type( websites out there that provide some amazing information that people use everyday, but many of these blogs do not have the exposure they deserve. Many of the geeks I know that love to code and share about their world of technology have no clue about social media sites, let alone micro-blogging sites like Twitter or Plurk . They may have heard about Digg, used it once,

I got asked this question in the form of a comment today - if I had any viral marketing ideas for a hearing aid clinic? At first it stumped me, I have to admit. Had I finally found an industry that is to boring for viral marketing? I have not had a lot of time to think about this, but all of a sudden the first thing that popped into my head was this "The 10 Greatest Health Related Technology Advances" and research out,

I was not going to post rant about this, but after reading Matt Mcgee's latest post about Google giving love to Yahoo Answers )which is worth looking at( I had to say something. It is just to good not to, well I think anyway. I have been using my Yahoo Answers account more recently, after a period of inactivity I wanted to give it a shot again and build up my account. I was doing it for pure fun )maybe a little testing( and had no marketing intentions with it )honestly(.

As I downloaded yet more of Metallica yesterday from iTunes )the new stuff freaking rocks btw( it got me thinking of how some bands are embracing social communities and growing bigger because of them. Also, bands like Metallica are finally starting to figure out the power of the Internet, and embrace its users more to grow their fan base )and maybe win back some fans in their case(. What can a no name band do to get its name out there more with social media?

I have been seeing some pretty interesting picnic and outdoor related blog posts and articles show up online lately, and I wanted to share some more ideas on the industry of picnic baskets and share how I think this industry could do really well in the social communities. Now picnic baskets themselves are pretty boring )in my opinion( but when you can put them side by side with the reasons we use them )food, tailgating parties, outdoor romance( they get a lot more interesting,