If you have bad customer reviews on Yelp, Google+, Angie’s List or any other online review site, you are throwing your advertising dollars away and hemorrhaging business.

Why?

Because over 70% of people searching for products and services from local businesses check online reviews before they buy.

Here’s the scenario: You spend all this money on advertising. Your potential customer, client or patient is interested and ready to buy and then, BAM! They go online to check out your reviews and some bad reviews kill the deal for you.

BUT, since they’re hot to buy the product or service you’re selling, they find your competitor who has great reviews and buys from them instead.

Ouch!

What can you do to turn that around?

Get a SYSTEM. A marketing system. An online customer review marketing system.

A system that:

1. Elicits reviews from your customers , clients or patients.
2. Funnels good reviews to online review sites.
3. Funnels bad reviews to your office for your staff to respond to and turn them into happy customers if you can.
4. Trains your staff in the art of getting your clientele to give you reviews.
5. Markets those good reviews on your website and social media.

All of which gets your phone ringing with customers who want to do business with you because of your 5-star online reputation so all your advertising dollars DON’T go to waste!

Now I want to invite you to get your no obligation, free customized reputation report (a $197 value) so you can see exactly where you stand with your review reputation. Click here to request your custom reputation report or call (312) 605-2686 right away.

In the following article, Ribi Khaimov has put together a kind of glossary of seo terms and techniques every small business owner should be familiar with if they’re seeking professional seo consulting services.

SEO Techniques and Terminology

Having at least a basic handle on SEO and SEO reporting tools is vital for survival in today’s digital marketplace. Thankfully, many SEO reporting tools are relatively intuitive and increasing your SEO vocabulary is now easy. Read through the following glossary to boost your knowledge and ensure that you understand the many SEO reporting tools available to you and why SEO works.

Anchor Text – The text that appears as a link to another page. Search engines pay a lot of attention to this area to try and keep their results relevant.

Blog – A section of your website that should have some continually updated content. This content is often creative and is a great way to get useful keywords onto your site.

Conversion Form – Any form on a website that is designed to get some basic information from a visitor. These forms are often used to generate leads of some type.

The Fold – The Fold is the section of a particular page that is readily available to anyone upon first visiting that page. Search engines draw distinctions between “above the fold” and “below the fold” text and activity.

Headings – These pieces of text are placed within specific tags that give them greater importance. They also make the text larger and is often bolded.

HTML – The basic coding that search engines will be reading. It is important to get your essential keywords into the right places in your site’s coding.

Inbound Link – A link to your site from another site. If this site is relevant to your site and has a high search ranking, this type of link can do wonders to boost your rankings.

Internal Link – A link on your site that leads a visitor to another portion of your same site.

Indexed Pages – Quick term for referring to the pages stored by search engines. The search engine’s indexes are continually updated.

Keyword – The terms that people search. Websites should target specific terms and aim to reach their desired audience as simply as possible.

Linkbait – This describes any piece of content that is posted for the primary purpose of generating a high number of links. These links help drive your site’s rankings up.

Meta Description – The text that often appears on search engines and offers up a brief explanation of your site and its purpose.

PageRank – Google’s ranking system for individual websites to determine how well their SEO is laid out.

Ranking Factor – Anything that a search engine takes into account when ordering search results.

Search Engine Ranking Page – The initial page someone is sent to after searching for a given keyword. This page usually has around 10 search results on it.

Traffic – Your website’s visitors.

Traffic Rank – A metric that allows for easy comparisons between your own visitor stats and those from other sites across the web.

To view this article in its original blog setting, along with other similar articles, go to the following URL:— http://blog.etech7.com/blog/?Tag=SEO

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Comments: Since the recent Google updates, with the emphasis on going after spammy, over-optimized content and an overly concentrated use of anchor text inbound links (backlinks) that give an unnatural “link profile,” knowing how to ask for what you really want has never been more important. This SEO glossary will help you with that.

From time to time you may find you need to transfer big media files to your clients, vendors and customers. They’re way too large to send via email.

So, HOW do you do it?

Well, here’s your answer… and it’s FREE.

Yup, a free service – WeTransfer.com

Upload your files (up to 2 gigs), enter the email address of who you’re sending it to, your email address, and a message if you want.

The files are stored for two weeks.

To Your Success!

Arm your vuvuzelas: WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard).

Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies. (Twenty Ten theme shows all of that off.)

Developers and network admins will appreciate the long-awaited merge of MU and WordPress, creating the new multi-site functionality which makes it possible to run one blog or ten million from the same installation.

As a user, you will love the new lighter interface, the contextual help on every screen, the 1,217 bug fixes and feature enhancements, bulk updates so you can upgrade 15 plugins at once with a single click, and blah blah blah just watch the video.

What do Apple Computers, the Wright Brothers and Martin Luther King Jr. have to do with your business?

What should you do in order to create a thriving business?

Watch this presentation to discover their secret insight, and grow your business.

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

Mass marketing in print media does not work as well as it used to.

But there’s HOPE!

Here’s the neat part. People search online for the goods and services they want and need. Then they buy them from those businesses.

Two-thirds use online search to find what they want and then more than half of them BUY!

According to a recent study by comScore and TMP Directional Marketing:

67% of local business searchers indicated online search as their primary source of local business info.

54% of all online local business searchers went on to make a purchase whether in person, online or by phone.

32% of local business searchers with an internet-capable cell phone conducted a local business search, an 11% increase from 2008.

So what does that mean to me, Paul? How would I even begin to use the Internet to get more customers?

Well, here’s just four ways to harness the power of the Internet and they’re free or really inexpensive.

1.Online video marketing – With the widespread use of high-speed internet service, easily accessible video cameras (heck, if you don’t have one, borrow one), YouTube, and editing software built into computers, using video online as a marketing tool is a MUST. It doesn’t have to be polished and professional-looking. The threshold for quality is still pretty forgiving. Introduce yourself, talk about your business, invite them to your store.

2.Online article marketing – Write an article and submit it for free to online article directories like Ezinearticles.com or SelfGrowth.com. Show your expertise on your product or service and invite the reader to your website for more terrific info. Use ‘location’ words in your article title and article body like Chicago or OakBrook or downtown Evanston. Get found in the search engines when people are searching for your product or service.

3.Online press releases – These can be free or paid. They are a great way to spread the word about your business. Use them to announce contests, surveys, your community involvement, the Little League team you sponsor or any newsworthy event your business is participating in.

4.List building – Give your customers an incentive to sign up for your email list with special offers, discounts or a free report. Keep in touch. Build the relationship. Sell to them over and over again. Ask for referrals and testimonials.

These are just four ways you can use a website and the internet to market your small local business online. And what could be better in this economy than to be right in front of your prospective customer when they’re searching for your product or service?

For more information on how your business can effectively use online marketing, please contact me.

Call Now To Schedule Your Free Consultation! 312-605-2686

WOW!
The book is finally published!
I’m featured in a book by Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer!
How COOL is that!

Ultimate Entrepreneur Success Secrets

Inspiring Stories of Triumph
by Chicagoland’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs

by Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer, and Lee Milteer

I know a lot of the people featured in the book personally. The common trait they all share is that they are all positive and focused and they all TAKE ACTION. Despite the economy, despite the gloomy news, many of them had their best year ever in 2009… and they’ll have a better year in 2010 because they take action. They have a plan and they DO IT.

They KNOW they have the power to control the results they get and they act accordingly. They respond to reality. They don’t ‘buy in’ to the largely manufactured negativity we’re hammered with daily in the news.

People’s buying habits have changed, make no mistake, but they are STILL BUYING. The smart small business owner makes a plan and implements the plan to make sure they get in front of the crowd when they’re shopping for that product or service.

Other Featured Entrepreneurs from the book:

One of the featured Successful Entrepreneurs in the book is Michael Frank (Chapter 41). Michael is the owner of Earwig Music Company, Inc., a record label and artist management company.

One of Earwig’s artists is David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards. Last weekend NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams ran a feature on Honeyboy and is likely to rebroadcast Sunday 12/20 on Today Show weekend Sunday morning and/or on the news that night.

Check out Honeyboy’s bio at Earwig Music

And if you missed the broadcast, here’s the clip:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy