That’s right, we’re helping the owner of a Tahitian island sell his private island. We’re implementing a worldwide Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization campaign, as well as a full-scale Social Media blitz.

Stay tuned for a follow up report!

PRIVATE ISLAND FOR SALE

If you’ve ever dreamed of owning your own island in a South Pacific tropical paradise, covered in lush palms cooled by gentle breezes, surrounded by warm tropical waters teeming with exotic corals and sea life, then your dream could possibly come true.

Motu Moie is currently for sale. This 26 acre private island motu is located in the Society Islands of French Polynesia, 90 miles from Papeete and 15 miles from world renown Bora Bora. It is situated on the edge of a tropical reef within the lagoon, surrounding the island of Tahaa. The property is ideal for a private residence or can be developed as an exclusive resort. Clear title is held by a U.S. corporation.

Discover the beauty of the Polynesian lifestyle. Explore the unspoiled natural surroundings, fish for your own dinner, and relax on your own white sand beach. If you long for peaceful tranquility, far from the stresses of everyday life, this paradise could be all yours. A life changing environment to cherish forever.

The current accommodations include owners bungalow, three guest beach bungalows, dining and relaxing bungalow, caretakers house, sports Bungalow, and utility buildings. Fresh water is supplied by the islands natural coral filtered well, and electricity for refrigeration and lighting is solar powered.

Flights from Los Angeles and other international cities arrive in Papeete daily. A 40 minute local flight brings you to Raiatea/Tahaa, then a short lagoon boat ride brings you to the Motu Moie. Basic supplies, restaurants and shopping, as well as gourmet foods from France and around the world are available locally.

Advance reservations are required prior to your visit. Please contact us with questions and for further information.

Thank you,

Jim Arthur
Proprietor
info@mytahitiisland.com
www.mytahitiisland.com
562-426-5825 (USA)

Popularity: 6% [?]

We want to thank those of you who have continued to trust Page1Listings.com as your marketing guide in 2010.  Your support has allowed us to grow dramatically in staff, knowledge, and efficiency.  These have in turn led to the development of several new tools that will benefit every local business in 2011.  Here are some small business marketing trends of 2011 and what we are doing about it.

1.  Traditional WOM (Word Of Mouth) is and continues to be a huge driver of new business to all small local companies.  But Internet WOM is already or will be the number one source of new clients in 2011.  The single most important component will be Reviews, Testimonials, and Reputation Management.  Whether on Yelp, SuperPages, TripAdvisor, InsiderPages, Google Places or your own website or blog, folks will use the words of your existing customers to determine whether to buy from you or not.

Our Solution:  ShoutDog continues to help clients gain more positive and will soon be joined with a new business review tool called Review This Biz.  It will combine a simple method for generating reviews with other feedback methods to help improve your positive customer service.  We expect Review This Biz  to be a VBD (Very Big Deal) for our clients in 2011.  Expect a beta launch in mid-Januaray 2011.

2.  Email Marketing will continue to be the number one ROI (Return On Investment) for all marketing tools available to small businesses.  Sending relevant and fun emails to your clients past, present, and future is producing fantastic returns for everyone we know.

Our Solution:  ShoutDog Email and List Services will help in generating new emails for your database. Our email department is getting stronger at creating emails that will get opened and produce actions.  If you are not currently sending out emails to your own list, make it a priority in 2011.

3.  Google Places will continue to baffle and befuddle with their changes and their buggy applications, but they will also continue to produce noticeable results for those who are highly ranked under important keywords.  Our expectation is that Places will become even more dominant in 2011.

Our Solution:  We are nationally recognized as an expert in Google Places (Look up ‘Google Places Expert’….we are ranked #1).  We believe that reviews will be the big determinant of rank in 2011.  ReviewThisBiz will be helping to drive reviews to your Places Listing.  We will continue to DAILY monitor the entire web for what the other experts are saying about optimizing Google Places.

4.  YouTube now sees 35 hours of video uploaded every minute.  Nationally YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine and drives business to every kind of company.  Every single pundit sees even more emphasis on this category of marketing as smart phones become the number one way to view videos.

Our Solution:  We were way ahead of this curve and have now produced well over 400 YouTube Videos for our clients.  We have added new technology in December that allows for a very inexpensive way to create great videos.  We highly recommend that every business have a minimum of 20 YouTube videos.

5.  Social Media is not going away.  Facebook is the current king but others are working to take market share. During 2010, we jumped into the social media pool with a tool called Go Social.  This allowed for the much more efficient use of time and energy for Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

Our Solution:  In 2011 we will work to further streamline the creation and distribution of content for all social media sites.  We believe that we already have the most effective system in existence.  Through our process a 500 word article can become an online article, two press releases, two to three blog posts, and those blog posts create activity on FaceBook, Twitter, and Linked In.  Even one such effort per month will result in 100′s of potential views of your ideas on the net each month, and 1000′s within a year.  We will have a tutorial on Go Social available by Jan 10th, 2011.

6.  Websites are, says Google, critical to your ranking on Google Places.  Moreover, with Google’s new Preview tool on search, the front page of your website needs to be an attention getter in two seconds or less of viewing time.

Our Solution:  Every website needs to be evaluated for content and local SEO (search engine optimization).  The front page needs to be reviewed to see if it has the WOW factor in Preview. And most importantly, the website has to designed to have a very high conversion rate or all of the SEO in the world will not generate new customers for your business.

7.  Local Networking:  WOM from your customer to their friends and neighbors is fantastic.  WOM online through social networking, videos, and reviews is really great.  But many small businesses fail to appreciate the importance of WOM from peers, suppliers, and community resources.  In 2011, we expect this type of marketing to continue to be increasingly useful and popular.

Our Solution:  We will have a tutorial on how to get WOM through local networking available by January 10th. We will have a check list of things you need to do to get the most out of Local Networking.

These are the biggies for 2011.  There are many other important marketing developments that will effect us all in the new year, but if every local business got these seven right, we suspect business will be quite good in 2011.

Feel free to contact us for comments or questions about anything you’re read.

800-708-1748

Sincerely,

Your Page1Lsitings.com Team!

ps – Have a great 2011!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Google announced today a new search feature that will be live around the world in a few days. Basically, people searching on Google will now have the opportunity see an Instant Preview of  your web site next the listing in a preview window. This a game changer for web site design and search engine optimization. We’ll post more on this subject over the next few days.

See how Instant Preview works.

Here’s an example of what it looks like….

Do a search and roll over the magnifying glass next to each listing in the Google Place or Maps listings or in the Organic results. A pop up of the web site will appear to the right. It’s very obvious that the design of your web site will play a bigger part in the click through conversions. Being ranked #1 on Google Places or in the Organic doesn’t mean your listing will get the most clicks. Your web site has to have all of the elements to get someone to click to your business. Hang in there business owners, we’ll help you with all of this.

Popularity: 11% [?]

If you’re in the SEO, SEM, SERP, or Internet Marketing industry, this is one of those moments, where you say “I remember where I was the day Google launched the new Google Place Search”.  At 2:00 PM (PST) on October 27th, 2010, I was driving on a mountain pass between Los Angeles and Bakersfield when my cell phone began ringing from concerned clients and a few calls from some new prospects frantically trying to understand it all. We knew it was coming and have done extensive research on the topic but we didn’t know the exact launch date. Well, it’s here and here to stay.

Google announces and promotes the new Google Place search on their blog.

Here’s an excerpt…
“One of the great things about our approach is that it makes it easier to find a comprehensive view of each place. In our new layout you’ll find many more relevant links on a single results page—often 30 or 40. Instead of doing eight or 10 searches, often you’ll get to the sites you’re looking for with just one search. In our testing Place Search saves people an average of two seconds on searches for local information.”

If you’re a local business with one location or if you have twenty locations, you are probably wondering what all this means to me and how is it going to effect my local places rankings and more importantly, how is this going to effect my business?

Let’s look at few new features of new Google Places Search.

1. Your Google Places Page Has To Be Optimized
Actually, this priority really hasn’t changed. Have a well optimized Google Places page still remains the #1 factor in getting better rankings and increasing a businesses online visibility.

2. Reviews Are More Important Than Ever

When searching for a local restaurant, dentist, plumber or locksmith, the businesses that are ranked the highest have the most reviews. If you are a nail shop in Maui with 100 reviews and your competitor two blocks away has no reviews, you will show rank higher, if all other SEO  factors are the same.

Also, Google is displaying the reviews totals and some reviews from Local Directories like Yelp, CitySearch, Tripadvisor, InsiderPages and more. So not only is it important to get reviews on your Google Places listing but it’s also critical that you get reviews on those other Local Directories. Don’t worry Bing Local and Local.Yahoo, you are important too. Before you can get reviews on these Local Directories, you first must create and optimize your business listing, at which point, those citations will give you a boost to your Google Places ranking.

3. Pay Attention To Your Web Site Description

This is a big deviation from previously displayed local search results in that you really didn’t need a web site but now that Description can get people to your door, of course, you have to get your business listing at the top of Google Places but that’s another topic.

For example, when searching for ‘austin bar-b-que’, County Line shows up #1 in the Google Places…

Here is the meta description directly from County Line’s web site:
<META name=”description” content=”County Line & State Line Restaurants – nationally recognized and award Winning Texas barbeque. Full-service dining in a fun, roadhouse atmosphere, with private parties & to-go available.”>

Plan and optimize your web site description wisely. Again, if your local business is not on page 1 of Google Places Search, the point is really mute.

So in conclusion, claim and optimize your Google Places Listing, list and optimize your business listing on the important Local Directories for increased citations, get positive reviews on Google Places and other Local Directories and don’t forget to optimize your web site. Here are a few other factors that will help you improve your Google Places ranking: content on your web site, blog development, back links to your web site (from directories, mirco directories, blogs,  vendors & suppliers, and press releases.

If you need help with your Google Places Listing, give us a call at 800-708-1748 for a free Google Places Evaluation.

Also be sure to check out our new service that helps you get more positive reviews. Go to ShoutDog.com for more information.

Popularity: 13% [?]

YELP!!??  Makes me want to Yelp for Help

Over the years I have compared Google to God and also to Mario Brothers.  If you played Mario Brothers you know that unless you had an experienced player nearby, you basically needed to move around the game board jumping up and down, hoping to hit your head against and invisible box.  If you found these boxes, you’d be rewarded with coins.  Google is very much like this.

However, Yelp seems to be hoping to outdo Google in this comparison, at least as it applies to reviews.  Several of my clients have tried to get reviews posted on Yelp, and have had varying degrees of success.  One in particular, a very talented orthodontist in Westchester, CA., had 3 reviews “showing” on Yelp, but 8 reviews that were “filtered.”  If you are a Yelp subscriber and you know about this, you can click a box and see the filtered reviews.  If you are not a member, forgetaboutit.

So she had 8 of her clients go to the trouble to sign up at Yelp, fill out the reviews, but basically nobody is seeing these reviews.  To make matters worse, Google Places is once again showing Yelp reviews, and of course, that would only be the unfiltered variety.

A few months ago, as a result of a lawsuit filed against them, Yelp made a statement that they were employing robotic methods of filtering their reviews.  But, of course, the couldn’t share these methods for fear that businesses would game the system.  However, the did allow that individuals who only had done three or fewer reviews would not likely have their reviews front and center.  Four was the magic number.

But it turns out that my orthodontist client had two reviews from reviewers with SIX current review on Yelp.  I called Yelp.

We can all agree with the rep I talked to.  Yelp wants real reviews from real consumers.  They believe that active reviewers are more likely to be folks who have not been solicited to do reviews by the owners of the businesses.  All well and good.  But SIX reviews and still filtered.  So the rep looks at the status and says:  “Well the reviewer has not uploaded a picture of themselves, and they haven’t friended any other Yelp members.”  And the plot thickens.

So, the reality here is that if you want to get reviews on Yelp, you are going to have to get folks to not merely sign up, but become truly active workers for Yelp.  How great is this for them.  Maybe there is a business opportunity here in setting up folks to do reviews on Yelp.

By the way.  There are two other tricks to Yelp.  One, you can now respond to negative reviews.  Two, if you are a member, you can “Flag this review.”  It does require that you give a reason for flagging it, but the rep assures me that the flagging process can result in reviews being taken off.

Personally, I am boycotting Yelp.  If you feel that your company seriously needs traffic from Yelp, I will do everything I can to help you get multiple reviews there, and take care of negative reviews.  But I think they are hurting businesses more than they are helping them.

I’d love to hear from you about your experience with Yelp.  Review the Reviewer time.

Popularity: 53% [?]

Beware of the Ice Cream Shortage – 2011 Business Prediction

Like many Americans, my personal financial situation the last two years has been substantially less prosperous than the last few decades.  Among may other things that I have given up or cut way back has been a lifelong habit of a bowl of ice cream for desert.  So strong is this desire that I have even used it as a self-motivational tool during the early stages of my sales career.  If I didn’t hit my daily goal…no ice cream.

During my two years of cutting expenses to the bone, I have occasionally bought the ice cream anyway, because at two half gallons for $5 of the premium stuff, it was hard to pass up.

Slowly but surely my income has increased and my debt has dramatically decreased.  My expenses due to debt, too.  My car is 10 years old and 131k miles.  Not my normal trade in every 4 or 5 years approach.  My savings account is filling up.  I bought a freezer full of ice cream the other day.

Now, even though the country is still in pretty bad shape, the prices of my favorite flavors were way up.  Could it be that other folks who have depriving themselves of this luxury were also back to buying, thus driving the price up.  In my minds eye, I imagine a run on ice cream with wild eyed shoppers fighting for the last container.

And what about the price?  We can imagine that production is much lower than two years ago.  Some producers have probably even gone out of business or laid off staff.  Raw material producers, too.  As the demand rises and the supply is not able to keep up, what will any self respecting capitalist do.  Raise the price.

It is this shopper’s opinion that we are on the verge of something pretty awful.  Millions of companies and hundreds of millions of consumers are in my same spot.  Their credit cards are the lowest in a generation.  Their savings are topped off.  They’ve learned to live with less as I have.   But there comes a day when you no longer want to feel deprived.  You buy a freezer full of ice cream, and a new car, and use your credit card to get some new clothes, and take your wife to dinner someplace better than the food court at the mall.

Not before Christmas 2010, but sometime in 2011 this is going to hit like a wave.  There is nothing either party can do to prevent it.  But there are smart and dumb approaches for dealing with it.  Today, I speak only as a pundit and a prognosticator.  Not picking sides.  Not suggesting policy.  In a future article I will make recommendations for small business owners as to how to plan for this event.

Popularity: 9% [?]

There are no real secrets to Google Places. When you have a great location on Google Places business directory, the phone rings.  When the phone suddenly stops, you might immediately go check to see the status of your listings on Google Places.  You may be shocked at what you find.

SMB’s (Small Businesses) today are at the mercy of the Google Places local business directory.  While many local companies are unaware of the potential increases that they might find in phone calls, sales, and profits from gaining a great rank on the 7-pack of the Google Places Map, more astute owners are working hard to get those rankings and then hold on to them.

However, while Google Places can be a big traffic generator, it is a fickle friend of local business.  Mysteriously, or so it seems, your listing may drop in rank, drop off of the 7-pack, drop out of site completely, or be reviewed, suspended, or have the analytics stop showing, and the words “location not supported” may appear.

Google would undoubtedly be the first to admit that sometimes, maybe even often times, these problems are due to hiccups in their systems.  Clearly there are times when Google is introducing something new like tags or Google Instant where listings are thrown into a tizzy for a day or two, just to come back to normal later.  And, Google is constantly changing their methods of dealing with various things, and they don’t always tell the rest of us what they are up to.

On the other hand, there are some very serious KNOWN reasons why your listing may be in trouble or merely sinking in the rankings.  Here are the big ones:

• Spammy information in your listing.  This can be the name, address, phone number, description, and possibly the details.  It can also be that your first business category is not one that Google Places has on the drop down menu when you set up the listing.  See the Google Guidelines to determine if what you are doing is outside of their terms.
• The location marker is incorrect.  Maybe you moved it to make it closer to the center of town.  Maybe you didn’t move it, but Google has decided it isn’t correct.  Make sure the marker is in the right place.
• Your description contains words that repeat what is in your basic information, such as city or address.
• You don’t have any or enough reviews.  If your competition is getting new reviews and you are not, you will drop in rank. See ShoutDog for about getting positive reviews for your business.
• Google is not able to find any or very much information about you elsewhere on the web.  This is called citations.  Google wants your information on the listing to be the same as it is on Yelp or Yahoo and especially on your website, or other websites that talk about you.  If your competition has more great citations, you may drop in rank.
• More on citations.  If your name is spammy and filled with keywords or city information, and your website and other places on the web only show the basic name without the spam, you may drop way down or even be suspended.
• Google is now calling businesses to make sure that they really exist.  If they call your company number and get bad information, we can only guess at the consequences.
• Multiple listings for the same address or phone number are well documented as a way to lose rank or get suspended or even sand boxed.

If you are having difficulties and can’t figure out why you are not at the top of Google Places, give us a call at 800-708-1748 or 310-987-2908.

Popularity: 32% [?]

ShoutDog.com is ready!  We’ve been talking about the cute Orange Dog
for some time now, but after a huge effort on the part of the entire team here at
Page1Listings, especially “Gigi”, who patiently modeled for our logo, we are breaking out the champagne.

What is ShoutDog.com? It is an easy way for you, the small business owner or
marketing manager or consultant to generate local business reviews, and yes, the
Holy Grail of business review sites, Google Places business reviews.  We send you
the ‘Review Us at ShoutDog” widget for your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter or, email newsletter.

When your clients see the ShoutDog Review Us logo it will be obvious that you would like them to help out with a review of your business.

Now the best part! When they click on the Review us at ShoutDog logo, the will be linked to a page specifically constructed for your business with easy as 1, 2, 3 instructions for them to create those golden reviews. (See examples Mauricio’s Mexican Restaurant, Puroserve Water Softeners, A-1 Locksmith)

You will have a unique page that will specifically point out the business review
sites that you care about.  These can be the large local search engines and
directories mentioned above, or industry specific sites like AVVO for lawyers,
UrbanSpoon for restaurants, or TripAdvisor for hotels.  All your customer needs
to do is click on the link to these business review sites, and they will go directly
to the very page where they can say wonderful things about you.

Go to ShoutDog.com right now and sign up.  The sooner you sign up the
sooner you can start to see your star rising up on Google Places.  You do know that
part of your ranking at Google Places is based on how many reviews you have.  AND,
not only how many reviews you have at Google itself, but they also give you cred for
having reviews on other directories.

Did you know that when your potential customer visits CitySearch or SuperPages
looking for the kinds of goods and services you provide, they are twice as likely to
call you or click through to your website if there are positive reviews about you?
And the reviews themselves can be the motivation needed.   For only $19.95 per month, it
will likely only take one person to visit you or call you because of these reviews
to more than pay for the monthly subscription.

Special Bonus to sign up NOW!  We will also send you 250 business cards like these.

Front:

Back:

You can hand these out to customers at check out or to friends and business
associates at meetings or functions.  What an easy way to ask a favor:  “Please help
me grow my business with a review.”  We want to help you get those reviews.  We will
be posting other ideas and suggestions for how to use your ShoutDog as a massive
review generator.  Get your bonus today.

We are positioning ShoutDog as a proactive online reputation tool.  You may have
already experienced a negative review on one of these sites.  The best cure to one
or two negative reviews is five or ten or 50 good ones.

Or maybe you’ve never been “flamed.”  A flame is a really bad review that is more
commonly written by a disgruntled former employee or competitor that a really mad
customer.  But it has the same effect.  The best way to get ahead of a future flame
or other negative review.  Have multiple good reviews already posted.  Either way,
the answer is ShoutDog.com!

Popularity: 14% [?]

Nobody is perfect.  If you are in business, mistakes are going to happen.  Your unhappy customers are at least 10 times more likely to go to the trouble to review you as are your deliriously happy customers.  Even if you did make a mistake, and that is not always the case, there are potentially two sides to any issue.  Now Google Places Business Listings is joining Yelp in offering a way to respond to critical consumer reviews.  They have offered some do’s and dont’s and even some rules (so unGoogle-like).

Google Places business listings fully intends to be number one among all business listing tools on the web.  They have the right location to accomplish this.  The only thing left to do is provide such a robust environment for both owners and their customers that both will spend time, energy, and money here rather than at Yellowpages, Yelp, Yahoo, or other competitors in the online local search engine and directory world.

According to conversations I’ve had with managers at Yelp and CitySearch, and according to many articles on the subject by various pundits, the real competition is in the reviews.  And reviews are real trouble.  Flames from competitors, unreasonable expectations from consumers, and a propensity to complain and ask questions later, has resulted in lost business for otherwise excellent businesses.

Yelp has been at the center of the controversy, including various lawsuits on the subject.  They started offering owner responses several months ago.  Now Google is following that lead, and in a way that is very unGoogle-like.  They have given rules, recommendations, and even examples of do’s and dont’s for handling the responses.  And at least at first blush, they have made the process simple.  Could this be a forerunner of better customer care by Google in the future, or just a recognition that anything less might create lawsuits for Google?

In order to make a response to a review on Google Places, you must have claimed your listing.  Amazing, but true, there a millions of businesses who have not yet claimed their listings.  Once you have claimed your listing, you will see the reviews section on the Place Page.  There you will also see “Respond publicly as the owner.”  Merely click here, make your response and click publish.

Google has posted rules for the review and response section as follows:
•    Don’t spam or post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.
•    Don’t post or link to content that is sexually explicit or contains profanity.
•    Don’t post or link to content that is abusive or hateful or threatens or harasses others.
•    Don’t post or or link to any file that contains viruses, corrupted files, “Trojan Horses,” or any other contaminating or destructive features that may damage someone else’s computer.
•    Don’t post any material that violates the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.
•    Don’t impersonate any person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
•    Don’t violate any other applicable law or regulation.
•    Don’t use comments as a forum for advertisement.

And google has posted their thoughts and ideas on what to say or not say when you post a response.  These are very common sense ideas.  You can see their suggestions here.

My thoughts are these.  Acknowledge and validate their feelings and concerns while not necessarily agreeing with their facts.  If you do agree with their facts, make it clear that you would welcome a chance to make it right.  If you don’t acknowledge their facts, make your own clear statement of your position with a very “nice” tone.  In many cases, even if they don’t have a leg to stand on, you can create great future goodwill with them and others by graciously offering to meet them somewhere in the middle.

Be sure to provide a response to every issue.  Sometimes a good review might contain a slightly negative element.  Profusely thank the person for their good review and use the guidelines above to respond to the negative part.

By far the best response to negative reviews is lots and lots of postiive ones.  Explore ways to generate positive reviews and make it a part of company policy to encourage such reviews.  Shout Dog is one online company offering some methods for getting more reviews.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you are interested in the whole Google Places Local Maps issue to the point where you’ve read everything you find on Page1Listings.com blog and you still want more, the head over to the Blumenthal Blog.  He’s more techie than we are (we are more marketing oriented, but as techie as we need to be.)  In any case, he has recently posted the current stats for local search.  It is eye-opening:

The Comscore Search report for June has been released. Google had 10.29 billion searches. If roughly the same percentage of searches (20%) had local intent as Google has indicated then there were approximately 2,187,200,000 searches in the U.S. on Google’s main search site last month that were local in nature.

Popularity: 12% [?]