Choosing how to get your business advertised on the internet is not an easy decision. There are so many different advertising platforms offering you incredulous amounts of traffic in exchange for large amounts of your advertising budget. With so many options available it’s difficult to know who to believe and who to trust. I’d like to make you aware of a new way of marketing and promoting your business that many of your competition have likely never even heard of. It’s called Google Places and has many benefits which I’ll now discuss in more detail.

The most important consideration is the fact that it’s free. Yes you did read that correctly, it’s not a typo. If you advertise your business with Google Places it will not cost you a cent. Many forms of online advertising cost money, for example Pay-Per-Click (PPC) can seriously eat into your advertising budget if you’re not careful plus there’s a large learning curve required before you likely see any success.

For many free equals sub-standard. This is not the case with Google Places advertising and I’ll explain why.

What you need to know and fully understand is that Google Places is owned by Google. Now that’s fairly obvious right but think about the benefits for your business. Google is by far the most popular and frequently used search engine in the world. Millions of people use Google’s search engine every day to help them find the information they need. Not only that but Google is constantly tweaking and testing their search engine algorithm to ensure they give people the exact information they are searching for.

Now imagine how having a strong presence on the first page of Google’s search engines can benefit your business. Increased visibility on Google equals potentially massive exposure. Increased exposure on the first page of Google’s search engine will ensure surges of highly targeted traffic to your Google Places listing.

A huge advantage of using Google Places is that it’s very easy to set up your listing. If you know how to type and operate a mouse then you’ve got the essential skills required to set up a basic listing Everything is step-by-step although there are certain insider strategies you need to be aware of to maximize the effectiveness of your Google Places ad.

Hopefully after reading this post you now understand the key benefits of getting your business listed on Google Places. Considering it’s FREE, owned by the number one search engine in the world and easy to set-up the decision to choose Google Places as part of your overall marketing strategy is a no brainer decision to make.

Would you like to learn everything you’ll ever need to know how to setup your own Google Places ad? Are you interested in some ‘insider secrets’ to help maximize the visibility of your ad and send droves of customers through your doors? Feel free to check out my brand new guide ‘Google Places by Your Virtual Girl Friday’. Or if you are a business owner who likes to “Work on your business and Not in your business” then call me, I’m your girl!

2. Social Streams are now indexed and listed in Google and Bing.

3. Social Media Sites generate high local listings in the Search Engines.

If you are participating this means an increase visibility for your business on a local level that can drive traffic to your business. “Link Love”

4. The proliferation of Social Media and the Mobile Web is changing the way consumers search to find what they are looking for.

“Over time the single greatest opportunity is to rule the local search landscape. 20-30-year-olds go straight to their mobile browser or Google Maps to find everything – shoes, food, insurance, a dentist, you name it. If they don’t find you by doing that, then you don’t exist.” -John Jantsch, February 2010

How are you making sure your business is joining these mobile conversations?

5. Ability to build relationship with an audience (even before they visit the business).

Building relationships with them before they even visit your business, extending your influence sphere.

“We (local businesses) have the ability to engage our clients at the point of experience.” – Joe Sorge, Owner of AJbombers
6.  Your competitors are connecting with “YOUR” prospective customers in the Social Media realm.

This statement should have you tossing in bed at night, I’m not sorry if it causes you to loose some sleep at night.   Your competitors are engaging a highly targeted audience and (sorry I’m going to pour the salt on the wound) their participation in social media marketing is allowing them to do it in a cost effective way!

7. Social Media Marketing is way more cost-effective than traditional advertising channels. Simply because it is:

• Targeted
• Personable
• Engaging
• Cost-Effective
• Viral
• Fastest growing medium (Ie. 500k new members a day on Facebook)

Example:  I go to Mack Bros and have the Ample Dumpling Crepes, they are delicious poached apples, pecans, and cheese. Yum, I’m getting hungry now. Then I tweet this out with the hashtag #Foursquare.   Not only do my followers on Twitter see this, but also my Tweeps who are using Foursquare.com.  Then I go to Mack Bros and I check in on Foursquare and add a to do, and some tags,.. Did I dethrone the Mayor?

I hope the visual recipe I just cooked up for you didn’t make you to hungry.  Priceless, you can’t buy that advertising.

Traditional methods like yellow pages, newspaper ads, and radio are:

• Hard to Measure
• Expensive
• Not focused on a target audience

I’m not saying they are useless, but when is the last time you went searching the yellow pages for something you wanted? I use it for a booster seat for my 5 year old… hmmm, I Wonder how many trees where cut down to boost her tushie. Just saying..

8.  Location-Based Social Networks (LBSN) will grow in prominence in 2010 and beyond.

Are your ears burning? They should be! I checked in on Foursquare and left a to do for the next time I visit your business. Who can see it? All my Friends on Foursquare, and did I mention that my Foursquare and Twitter accounts are connected to, yes it got tweeted out to the Twitterverse. Not to mention the update that went out to all of my friends on Facebook.

To all the Local Businesses out there not yet participating “Sweet Social Media Dreams”.

Traffic Geyser is a revolutionary way to get your videos promoted for an unlimited amount of viewers to see. TG will he distribute your videos to dozens of video sites. With this tool it will help you dominate the video content marketing arena.

With Traffic Geyser you can get several different placements in the search engines for your desired keywords and keyword phrases. This will help you utilize the internet to it’s full potential getting multiple page one placements for the keywords you wish to be ranked.

What sets Traffic Geyser apart from any other video submission service?

Traffic Geyser, as a marketing tool that was designed to help you get your website ranked higher in the website search engine listings. This service allows you not only to distribute videos but permits your content to be sent and linked to many different places: blog sites, social bookmarking sites, article submission sites, pod-casting directories and social networking sites too. You will be able to submit to these websites automatically. With this tool, you can submit your content to these specific websites because they make up social media and are very relevant according to search engines, especially Google.

You save a great deal of time by having this service since it submits your content to multiple places. By having your content on all these sites at once you can dominate keyword phrases, products and services in your niche market.

Basically,  the more places that your content can be found the more chances you have of being listed higher in the search engine results. Time is precious  and Traffic Geyser can save it for you, with an added bonus of getting  listed much higher on search engine results for the keywords and keyword phrases you are targeting.

online marketing strategy today?

COLLECTING EMAILS!!!!!

*Everyone* should be creating and building targeted email lists.

It is something that is overlooked by 99% of new marketers online
and even many larger companies, as well.

What are some reasons for creating email lists, beside the fact
that targeted email promotions CONVERT AS WELL OR BETTER THAN ALL
OTHER PROMOTING EFFORTS?

Hmm, collecting emails…

- Builds a Marketing Base of TARGETED LEADS
- Allows You To Be Intimate With Your Customers and Leads
- Allows You To Easily Share Valuable Information
- Gives You A Platform To Promote Your Products
- Gives You A Platform To Promote OTHER PEOPLE’S Products

Last, but not least…

- Generates Revenue and Profits for YEARS TO COME

It rarely gets any better than that in the internet business world.

So, how do you begin collecting valuable emails? One way is by building sales pages.

How do you build sales pages? By using UBD’s new “Sales Page Theme” The Sales Page Creation Tool For WordPress!

You just plug it into WordPress.

Sales Page Theme is the easiest way to create sales pages using WordPress!

WordPress is not only powerful, it’s easy to use.  AND Google loves it.  And now WordPress is the Ultimate Weapon for making money by converting visitors when used with Sales Page Theme! Just point-and-click and create SEO-optimized Sales Pages that look great for collecting emails for your email lists. Sales Page Theme automatically sets up WordPress to be optimized for the search engines.

Sales Page Theme also comes with an incredible Resource Center, including a step-by-step video tutorial guide, and a support forum.

UBD is offering a sale discount of 10% off their new product Sales Page Theme.  This is an exclusive offer that ends on 2/23/10.

Use this discount code: 7FE683C8B5

You can literally set up new sales pages in less than 10 minutes with the custom widgets feature. It’s by far the coolest interface they’ve been able to take advantage of!

Lets start with how a Blog can keep your website fresh.  When you go to the grocery store you expect fresh new produce right?  Well if your clients visit your unchanging aka static brochure type website they won’t find any new fresh content and soon they will stop visiting your site.  This is one reason so many small business websites fail to perform as desired.

Having a static site is better than not having a site at all, but it is difficult to rank well in the search engines because you are not adding new content.

Search engines are only one part of the equationwhen it comes to web traffic.  Social Media sites like Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter have strategies that can be used to promote and drive traffic to  websites but most of these strategies are dependent on the availability of an RSS feed (Real Simple Syndication).

Do you want a way to build relationships or create conversation with your clients and potential clients?  Blogs are relationship building tools. Blogs invite comments your readers can ask questions, give raving reviews, or even submit a complaint.  Complaints can be a great opportunity for a business owner to provide fabulous customer service.

Do you like referrals, Blogs create that word of mouth action.  Blogging helps local businesses create conversation with clients and stay in the view of their customers.

Do I have to be a geek to blog?  No blogs are easy to use and require no special training.
If you can write an email you can post to a blog. If you can attach a photo to an email, you can include a picture in a blog post.

Blogs are simple to optimize for search engines. When your blog is set up right it has built in search engine optimization features that help guide you as you add new content to incorporate the local terms (keywords) that will help your site rank well in search engines.

I look forward to helping you become part of the blogosphere!  My choice in blogging platforms is “WordPress.org”

Fan pages are one of the hottest pieces of Real Estate online today. Facebook has over 300 million users, did you know over ten million of those users become fans of Facebook pages each day?  Here are five reasons why Facebook Fan pages are such a powerful channel to increase your visibility and raise brand awareness:

Fan Pages facilitate greater interaction with a  target audience.
Facebook Fan Pages are very SEO friendly and highly indexed in  Google.  Having a fan page on Facebook gives your business additional linking oppotunities “Link Love” and viral marketing “referrals”!

Fan Pages allow you to build and connect with an unlimited fan base. With the over ten million users becoming fans of Facebook fan pages each day they are giving you permission to message them and there is no spam folder.

Facebook Applications enable you to now create visually appealing FB landing pages. Have you come across a fan page that gives you the option to sign up for a newsletter, welcome page, or a testimonial page?

Fan Pages are a powerful viral marketing tool. As users interact with your page, this shifts to their walls and news feeds leading to increased exposure!

This has given businesses the desire to create compelling Facebook Fan pages, but either a lack of time or lack of expertise keeps them from creating their fan pages.  If they already have a fan page they may not know how to use their page to unlock the full marketing power.

Recently I finished taking the “Fantastic Facebook Fanpages” course at VAclassroom. In this short mini-course, I was able to obtain the following skills:

- How to design, develop and market your fan page with a user-friendly step by step guide
- How to create visually appealing Facebook landing pages
- Success strategies for leveraging Facebook applications to increase the visibility of your business
- Simple SEO tips for helping your pages get more traffic from the Search Engines
- Practical tips for building a targeted email list with your fan page.

You can take the course if you’d like or if you don’t have time to take a class and just want it done I’m here for you.

Here is my Special going on now until December 31, 2009:

Fantabulous Facebook Fan Page $150.00

Includes:

1. Custom banner using your logo and picture
2. Create a “Welcome” landing page
3. If you have audio or a video this can be added to the Welcome landing page(Video/audio to be provided by you)
4. One additional Landing Page of your choice (Testimonials, Coupons, FAQs, Products, Portfolio Page, etc)
5. Connect to other social media sites ex. Linkedin, Twitter to Fan page and add linkable buttons
6. Email Opt in box for you to capture leads
7. 1 hr training on how to manage your Fan Page, add applications,  and tips to market your page