by Miriam Ellis You may not be seeing in in Firefox yet, but fire up your Google Chrome browser, and you'd better be sitting down for this one because the new integrated Google Local results are dizzyingly different and ready to rock the SERPs. My Canuck friends to the North aren't seeing this yet, and the rollout isn't complete in all browsers in the USA, but the implications of this totally new layout, if set in stone, are going to effect every local business on the map.

by Stoney deGeyter Over the last dozen plus years, unscrupulous SEO's have given the entire search engine optimization industry a bad rep. It seems like every few months some high profile person in the Internet world says something about how SEO is snake oil, sending ripples throughout the SEO community. To be fair, some of the complaints about SEOs are deserved. Not for the entire SEO community, but for a small segment of "SEO providers." Unfortunately, like sleezy lawyers,

by Mike Moran Image via Wikipedia Up until now, the appearance of your Web pages had nothing to do with your success in organic search, but that time might be coming to and end. Lots of stuff matters, of course, ranging from page titles to inbound links to dozens of other factors in each search engine's ranking algorithm. Also important is the title and the snippet that helps searchers decide which search result to click on. Once clicked,

by Eric Brown Have you ever wondered why some ideas manifest and move to action and some fizzle, either yours or someone else's. Or, how about the person who is always yapping about the next idea, yet never really follows through, and yet again there are those who execute one solid idea after another. What Separates Them? I had the opportunity to speak at a Jeff Pulver #140Conf Detroit last week, and my topic was Focus On What You Have.

by Stoney deGeyter It's funny that we use terms like "expert" to describe an SEO. When looking for someone to help us get us top search engine rankings, we often look to see who the experts are. Last time I checked, we don't look for "expert lawyers" or "expert doctors" or "expert plumbers". No, we look for professionals. However, we do often look for experts at certain subsets. Such as lawyers that are divorce experts, doctors that are cancer experts, plumbers that are... um,

by Stoney deGeyter SEO used to be all about getting top search engine rankings. While that is still a primary function of an SEO provider, that's not all there is to it anymore. Or, at least... it shouldn't be. If you're in the market for a )quality( SEO, you're going to find providers that go well beyond services aimed at achieving top search engine rankings. In fact, if your SEO only knows how to throw keywords you want to rank for onto your site pages,

by Stone Reuning Last month, both users and web marketers across the Internet started noticing something new and strange with Google. When typing in a search, Google would automatically start displaying search results - basically predicting what you are looking for and displaying results without you clicking "search." In a sense, Google has been providing suggestions for searches for awhile. While you're typing in the keyword phrases,

by Sage Lewis I just got a really compelling direct mail piece today that I think any small business could easily do... and probably get a lot of response. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Stoney deGeyter A few months ago a long-time client of mine was launching a new site. They wanted us on board to manage the SEO efforts of the new site, so we had been actively engaged through the design/development process. As they got closer to a launch date, the client wanted to to get a handle on what their expectations should be. Understanding expectations for business growth is important for any business owner. If you don't have some idea of what to expect,

by Stoney deGeyter In business, sometimes image is all we have. Many companies survive on their image alone. Sure, they had to work hard to build that image, but it's the image they have built that lets them thrive. Two quick examples: Nike would never be able to sell sneakers for $120 a pop if they slapped on a Wal-Mart logo. Same shoe, same manufacturer, same quality, but the Nike swoosh makes all the difference.

by Mike Moran This is an easy question, right? I know I thought so. Sure, small businesses )or any size business( must be vigilant about all posted customer reviews, because they are the first impression that a potential new customer gets of your business. But existing customers? They already know you and they have chosen you. Surely your online reviews don't matter to them. Yeah, well, that is what I thought, too,

by Stoney deGeyter I recently heard about a company that was working on having their site optimized and wanted to increase those efforts. Instead of doing so, they dropped the idea due to "lack of funds" and transferred that money over to Social Media. Another company brought their PPC in-house because it was becoming too expensive to outsource.

by Mike Moran I found myself asking just such a question when talking with a client of a multinational company. The problem they described to me sounded hard to solve. They worked in the UK office of this Web site, and were constantly bothered by the fact that the UK pages for their product offerings landed on page three )or even deeper( of the search results, while the US pages for their company were at the top of the list, even for UK searchers.

by Miriam Ellis Google should be issuing a mass warning right now, but in lieu of that, I'm going to. If your business is listed in Google Maps or you are simply a Maps user, do yourself a huge favor and read this post. Just when you thought tactics couldn't get any slimier on the dark side of Local, they have. Weaknesses in the Google Maps system are letting in a new breed of slithering,

by Stoney deGeyter Online marketing, like many other things in life, has several levels of, um... let's call it "luxury", for lack of a better word. You go from your basic model online marketing campaign )which is often someone who simply knows you have to edit some meta tags( all the way through to the most luxurious, no-holds-barred, damn-the-torpedoes, throw-everything-at-it-regardless-of-cost marketing that has everything you need )plus a lot of stuff you don't(.

by Stone Reuning Be sure and visit our small business news site.

by Mike Fleming There's a lot more leverage in writing and testing great ads than a lot of the activities that PPC managers can spend their time on. For those using AdWords, testing is the answer to almost everything. But, testing works better if you're able to test things that matter. People get caught testing things like switching lines around or replacing colons with semicolons and they end up creating basically similar ads. In this episode of PPC Rockstars ,

by Stoney deGeyter Most business owners start with a pretty good idea of who they are competing against before they even set up shop. This is valuable information that can help you overcome a deficit of knowledge that you may not even know you have. Just as competitor knowledge is valuable for offline businesses, a business owner must also have intimate knowledge of those who they are competing against online as well. You need to know who is the leader in your industry,

by Mike Moran I gave the keynote talk at the SMX Conference in Stockholm today, and what I had to say doesn't jive with what many smart SEO people advise. Basically, I told people that all of the tricks and optimizations and clever tactics are a waste of time for the average marketer. Despite the millions of pixels that have been used to explain all of these clever techniques for worming your way to the top of the search rankings,

by Mike Fleming I've started powering through David Szetela and Joe Kerschbaum's new PPC book called Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing: An Hour a Day and I really like this PDF they made available online to their readers. Although it's about classified ads, you can pull direct correlations to apply to your PPC text ads when advertising on search engines. Really, search engine results pages )SERPs( are just like classified ads except the page is digital instead of paper.