Do your Customers use Internet Search to find Products and Services?

For most people today the first place to look for products is the Web, and 50% of all searches are done on Google. As a local business you have an advantage and can be on the Top of the First Page
  • Google is the new yellow pages when it comes to searching for local businesses.
  • Google reports that millions of people conduct Google Maps searches everyday and they are looking for businesses just like yours!
  • Business listings in the top ten search results get most of the business!
  • Google Maps gives businesses tremendous opportunities to promote their business with photos and video, and so far it is still free! It's like getting a full page ad in a phone book and/or a free TV commercial.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Free business research tool from Google - Google Alerts

Put Google Alerts to work for you by sending you a daily digest of links of information related to your business by searching the web for key words you choose. For Free, you can get timely information about your industry, your competitors, or what people are saying about your business.

The different types of alerts include news (the latest news articles about your topic), web (the latest web pages that contain your search terms), blogs (posts that contain your search terms), comprehensive (the latest results from multiple sources), video (the latest videos with your search terms), and groups (posts from your Google groups). It's up to you whether you'd get daily, weekly, or "as it happens" email alerts.

To start you building your blog content you can simply take exerts from the original content Google Alerts provides (Make sure you reference the writer) and at the end create a link such as "Click Here for the article". If you are a reseller (as most retailers are) bring content & reviews from your vendors and place it on your blog.

Leveraging Google Alerts can be a easy way to add posts in business blogs, for those of you with writer's block. Click here if you want to see an example of using others articles on the Web found using Google Alerts, to build your blog.

It can also be the first line of defense in protecting your online reputation. It is good to know what people are saying, both good & bad, about you in the Wild West of the Internet.

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