OneBox and Local Business Listings

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 by admin

February SEM Resource of the Month

The OneBoxer blog is this month's SEM resource of the month. Why? Well it's great a place to get practical advice in getting listed in Google's Golden OneBox.

And with Google's announcement last month to include Local Results in the Golden OneBox, I thought it was about time I delved in a little deeper to see what it’s all about.

This really is a truly awesome opportunity for local businesses to get super high listings in a (arguable) non-sweat 'location "“ trade/services' Google search.

Let's see an example for 'London Plumber':

You can see the OneBox results sits proudly mapped between the sponsored listings and natural results. Brian Mark, author of the OneBoxer, dishes out plenty of useful tips, mostly relating to Froogle and Google Base "“ although you will find much of which can also be applied for local businesses and OneBox results.

And the Sign-up Process?

Slow, but easy. You need to setup an account at Google's Local Business Center. You will then be sent a PIN in the post to verify your businesses location, which takes about 2 weeks.

Be sure that you enter all your optimised business details correctly first time, as alterations after verification require a new PIN to be re-sent and a further two weeks wait as I have recently discovered!!

The OneBox has a bright, bright future"¦

Posted in sem | 1 Comment »

GMAIL the Great

Sunday, February 25th, 2007 by admin

I have always had a lot of time for GMAIL and think Google really has got it just right (nearly) and it only seems to be getting better. This weekend I inquisitively clicked on the 'new features' link "“ to my delight GMAIL's new service offers the facility to check the mail you receive from other email accounts and even reply from those accounts.

This feature has two obvious great benefits:

• The ability to check all your email accounts from one location. I for one have a gmail, hotmail and work email account "“ so this in itself is very useful. No flaws there!

• The second, the ability to send an email from one location, for all your email accounts. This sounds awesome, but there are a couple of flaws that question my 'GMAIL the Great' post title.

The major flaw lies in the fact that GMAIL is sending an email on behalf of your other email accounts. This results in some instances of the receiver of an email seeing the “From This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it on behalf of This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .” as the sender field. This for me lowers the trust bar for the receiver regarding your email as being genuine.

The reason Google does this is to help combat against SPAM and although I understand the reason why, I have found emails sent this way, landing in my Outlook SPAM folder, so again there is a trust issue.

Although that aside, GMAIL gets another big thumbs up and it is definitely continuingly to move forward! I also recently discovered that you can add an HTML & image signature which great for Publicising your blog in emails.

Posted in google | No Comments »

Save 5 Mins a Day with 5 Handy Mozilla Extensions

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 by admin

We all need a helping hand from our browsers now and again. Fortunately Mozilla's massive range of extensions can do just that and also save you heaps of time in process too. Here's my first port of call with every fresh install:

1. SEO for Firefox "“ packs a hefty punch in the research of SEO from search engines results. Also very useful for a bird's eye view in analysing competition.
2. Search Status "“ offers Google PageRank and the Alexa Popularity Ranking in the bottom right of the browser, plus indexed pages and backwards links from Google, Yahoo & MSN.
3. Google Notebook "“ has had mixed reviews, although I find it pretty useful. Just like a normal notebook, it's great for taking notes! Pretty simple really, and with the ability to create and move sections, it's not that bad at organising and prioritising to-do lists either "“ which makes this extension a worthy counterpart.
4. Web Developer "“ this is an awesome developer's timesaving tool, useful for checking out the HTML & CSS or in some cases dodgy table based designs in new sites. It lets you pop open the site's bonnet, have a poke around – without having to get your hands too dirty.
5. ColorZilla "“ if you have an interest in web design, ColorZilla's colour reading from any point in your browser is likely to add value and again save you a minute here and there.

There's a few of my favs "“ any other recommendations?

Posted in sem tools | 3 Comments »

Mysterious Feedburner Stats

Sunday, February 18th, 2007 by admin

As of Friday 16^th of Feb, Google is now reporting the number of subscribers a publisher has acquired through Google Reader and Google Personalized Homepage.

Joe’s Sem Blog subscribers stats:

I was shocked to see the number of subscribers for this blog had doubled and thought it must be a glitch. It appears not, with Feedburner also reporting and justifying the increase. Fellow bloggers have seen insanely amounts of increased subscribers.

It is nice ego boost, although I think a reality check is in order as the number of subscribers does not represent the click-through rates and subsequent traffic that a blog receives. I am also a little suspicious as to the accuracy of the count of subscribers – but hey, who am I to judge?

More news at TechCrunch and Wordpress.

Posted in blogging | 3 Comments »

British Internet Marketing Blogs

Thursday, February 15th, 2007 by admin

My good friend Keith has recently put together a website for Internet Marketing Blogs based in the UK.

Britain, Britain, Britain, Land of diversity… But what of the people of Britain? What do they? Who is them? And why? Little Britain

It's nice to see what's going on in your backyard once in while, so thanks for the great resource Keith. Maybe a Google co-op search engine could be on the cards too?

This Blog has also found its way onto another SEO/SEM aggregator site in recent weeks – the Megite Top Tank Blog, where you can find some of the top guys in online marketing world.

With lots of talk about Yahoo Pipes and the various SEO/SEM aggregators popping up, it seems like quite a bit of fun, so I will have a rip over the weekend and see what I can up with "“ watch this space!

Posted in sem | No Comments »

Social Media for Niche Sites

Friday, February 9th, 2007 by admin

Last night I tuned in to a brand new social media podcast. It's co-hosted by two guys who are sitting pretty high up in the Social Media Marketing world: Neil Patel and Cameron from Pronet Advertising.

Their first guest on the show is another guy I have a lot of time for, Todd Malicoat aka Stuntdbl. The podcast is all about the social networking sites and in particular Digg.

They also kindly spent a few moments answering a question I posted on Todd's site.

Here is the question:

There is a lot discussed about Digg, Delicious, Netscape, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc and I think they are all great – but is there currently any movement towards more niche/specialised social networking sites e.g. parenting/family sites?

The outcome seems to be that there certainly is some movement in that area, but it's all pretty new and there are lots opportunities for growth for such sites.

With a little digging around I stumbled upon an article on Mashable, that talks about Minti, a social networking site for parents or in PR terms, 'MySpace for Parents'. At first glance, it looks pretty good "“ expect the trend for such niche sites to continue for 2007.

Posted in social media | 1 Comment »

Now You Can Get Oodles of Links with Oodles of Reports

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 by admin

Andy Hagans pretty much lays all his linkbaiting cards on the table. This guide explores endless opportunities to get heaps of inbound links and all it requires is a little bit of thought by you.

Yes, that's you and after any successful link building campaign, wouldn't it be nice to track all those new Google links? Now you can through Google Webmaster Central.

This brand spanking new feature gives a much more complete overview of the inbound links that Google can see, rather than just a small sample that was previously on offer "“ so what are you waiting for? Go bait some links, reflect, sit back and enjoy the link love-ly reports!

Warning: the two main articles are fairly size-able, but read them wisely and so may be your link building efforts.

Posted in link building | No Comments »