Search Engine Marketing isn’t just for companies with substantial marketing budgets selling nationally and internationally.  ‘Bricks and mortar’ businesses in metropolitan areas are often shocked when they discover how much search exists for their products and services in their city. 

For example, there are approximately 3,500 (broad) Google searches per month on pet grooming services in Austin, TX (metro population approx. 1.5 million).  Strategic optimization with appropriate keywords like ‘Austin dog grooming’ and ‘mobile pet grooming Austin’ could drive a substantial amount of searches to the website over time, and a pay per click campaign starts at just a nickel per click on many of those keywords.

Even better, most businesses don’t know that the local search results—at the very top of the Google search results—are a FREE service. To sign up, click on the blue link at the top of the listings for your category, then go to the bottom of the page with listings. There’s a link for Information for Business Owners. From there, complete the forms on your business, and verify by phone or post card.

If you are a small business, more people are searching for your products in your city than you think - find out how small business SEO can work for you!

The economic storm is raging, and most of us have trimmed our sails and hunkered down. For seafaring men, time in port was not just spent drinking ale and carousing–the sailors needed to mend the sails, caulk the cracks in the hull, and take on provisions. In the economic downturn and the start of the holiday season, it might be easy to put off thinking about working on your website, but deferring maintenance may incur additional cost later…including the cost of missed opportunity. To be ready for driving business in the new year, now is the time to freshen your content, fix barriers to sales, and maybe overhaul your site optimization…or even the site design.

We have several design firms/developers/interactive shops we work with…there is no shortage of creative talent in Austin. Each company we work with has its particular niche and pricing structure, and each one really understands the importance of integrating a solid SEO strategy into the site architecture. If you’re thinking about putting the old site into dry dock and putting on a fresh coat of paint, give us a call and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Today we are announcing a new SEO coaching program, as well as a new, proprietary SEO management dashboard. This is a collaborative working environment for making improvements over time, as well as a way to monitor your rankings and clearly see the increase in penetrating the Total Available Search Market. If search engine optimization is one of those projects that you put off in the boom times, working with a flexible, creative, experienced SEO agency might be the most significant thing you can do in the lull to put wind in your sails when the new year dawns.

We have talked with three companies over the last few weeks who are all focused on creating or leveraging their directories. Although directories are nothing new, these companies are focused on capturing and aggressively maintaining position for the terms in the industries that they serve.

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It’s my “turn” to write a blog post. After listening to my whining for all of half a minute, our Blog Overlord said, “We have this great blogroll right there on our blog. Go read it. Find something interesting and link to it.” Very sympathetic. As it turns out, it was excellent advice.

The very first blog post I read was titled, “Blogging Lessons.” Its very first point? “1) It’s hard.“  (yes, it was written in bold.)  Now, that’s serendipity.

I just knew I’d found the I-Told-You-So blog posting to shoot back at our Overlord and get me out of having to ever blog again.  Nope. I realized she was right - again - to withhold sympathy.  Blogging IS important.  And it’s a commitment.  And it is hard.  Even for folks (like Spike) at Brains on Fire who blog all the time.  So, I feel better.  No more whining. For now.

Seriously, do read their work.  Very enlightening stuff.

This is so cool!

Nice. Simple. Powerful.