Below are some tested links to sites that offer free listings and most take no more than 5 minutes of your time – you will know by return mail or telephone call your entry is active – and therefore visible to all potential customers searching for you too.

1. Google Local
Adding your listing to Google Local lets you appear on the maps and company listings that sometimes appear when you search on Google. Your details will also appear on the Google Maps website.

Visit:  http://www.google.com/local/add/  or see the full Instructions with pictures and diagrams at http://www.businessinsites.co.uk/getting-on-google-local/

2. Yahoo Local

Yahoo’s local business directory - The information is used as a database to help people "find the nearest" company. It is used on a lot of website and applications. For example there are several iPhone applications using it. Add one entry here and your listing spreads all over the place.

View at http://uk.local.yahoo.com/
Add your details at http://yahoo.infoservegroup.com/business-owner-form.html 
 

3. Applegate
Applegate appears a lot as one of the results in Google. It might work for you, it might not but it is worth a few minutes adding your details. You will get a sales call at some point trying to get you to upgrade your listing - listen to the pitch and decide for yourself.

To get listed visit www.applegate.co.uk- use the search box to look for your company - if you find it, look for the ‘is this your company’ link at the bottom of the page. Otherwise use the Add/Edit information link to create a new listing.
 

4. Touch Local
Again appears frequently in Google Results. Expect a sales call on this one too.

Visit www.touchlocal.com - search for your company first  and look for ‘is this your business’ link. Otherwise click here to create a new basic free listing.
 

5. Best of
Best of is made up of a series of websites for major towns. They are a franchise with each area run by a franchisee. Experiences vary depending on the skill and experience of the franchisee. I would expect a sales call again.

To get listed find the nearest town to you at their town list. Click on the town and look for the ‘contact us’ page and then click Join.

6.  Ikarma.com

This site offers you a profile (see mine) which get added to Google over time, it also gives your customers a chance to review you.

Visit www.ikarma.com and register. You only need to add the basic details and can skip the first steps if you don’t want to ask people in your contact list to rate you.

7. Free Index
A free listing site with options to upgrade your listing online. Worth asking people to review your business as it raises your profile higher up in their search results.
Visit http://www.freeindex.co.uk/

8. Need some more?

Visit Google and try searching for < Your Town name> Business Directory

Reviews

As a lot of these sites accept reviews of your business, it is worth you monitoring what is being said about you. The reviews can appear even if you don’t add yourself - so it is worth looking just in case. You can of course encourage people to review you and it does make a difference especially if people have a choice of several businesses to take their business to.

Sites accepting reviews : Google Local, Touch Local, Best Of, iKarma and Freeindex.

Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing ideas, promoting your business

| View | Upload your own

The original listing and comments can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/coolstuff/the-brand-gap/v1#. From my painful experiences of "Branding" make sure you think twice about advertising for brandings sake. Question every expense and see if you can still do it well on a smaller budget.

As an aside slideshare.net is a great place to upload marketing material for people to find during searches and use of their site.

Technorati Tags: branding, marketing

This podcast asks the question should you blog for your business. Find out what a business blog can do for you and how to get started.

Resources mentioned in the podcast are

Hosted Blogging

www.wordpress.com
www.blogger.com
www.livejournal.com

Microblogs

www.twitter.com
www.pownce.com

Blogging software to install

www.wordpress.org

Hosting Companies that make blogging easier

www.hostgator.com

How to Blogging Sites

www.problogger.com

Technorati Tags: blogging, business blogging

This video takes a look at the first things you can do to improve where your website shows up in the Google rankings.

There are three main types of improvement you can make and the first of these is to change and add to the content on your website.

Outline:

• Why is content important?
• Ideas for new content for your business website
• Examples of business content appearing in Google

Technorati Tags: Google, search engine ranking, search results

Small Biz Podcast is a living business story each week - a mini audio business magazine. Bizpod is top of my list of podcasts on my iphone.

The podcast run by Alex Bellinger, covers subjects for small and medium size businesses as well as solopreneurs.

Each week’s podcast features interviews from around the business world and has included both big names and small like Rachel Elnaugh and Michael Gerber of e-Myth fame.

The difference

One of the main differences with other podcasts is that Alex interviews rather than just offering his opinion in a empty room.

Alex has a light hearted approach to interviewing which gets the best from interviewees and create meaty but very interesting content.

Past subjects have included social entrepreneurship, management buyouts and going solo - freelancing.

The podcasts normally end with a piece of electronica, a chance to hear something different to enlarge your musical tastes. Nice to take a break from the learning that pours out of my iPod normally.

The Michael Gerber interview was real food for the soul. His philosophy of life was well worth hearing and helped me clarify a few meaning of life issues as well as reminding me of the excellent e-myth teachings. Worth listening to even if you don’t regularly listen to podcasts.

Each 30-45 minute podcast is packed full of goodness and business thinking. My exercise routine is much enhanced by my weekly download of small biz pod.

Find It

You can find Small Biz Pod at www.SmallBizPod.co.uk where you can also find his blog.

Technorati Tags: E-Myth, Entrepreneurship, Michael Gerber, podcast review, Rachel Elnaugh, Small business, small business advice

This article will take a look at

• Where you see Google Local in action
• How to sign up to Google Local
• How to get better rankings on Google Local

Where you see Google Local in action

If you were to search on Google for web design kings hill at the top of the page you will hopefully see something like the image below. You should see a nice map and listings of local businesses. If fact if your search is made up from company type and location you will normally see this type of listing.

This is an example of the Google Local data being used in the main search on Google.

If you have ever tried to find directions you may have used Google Maps. There is a map link at the top of your Google results or you can visit maps.google.com . If you enter a trade or profession in the search box you will again see companies list. This is from the Google Local Database.

Clicking on one of the business listing will show more detail about the company you have picked. This includes business hours, contact details, promotional videos, a link to your website and more importantly reviews from past customers.

If you look back to the initial example you might just make out next to the first listing it says ‘3 Reviews’ while the others just say more. The 3 reviews stands out and takes someone who clicks on it directly to the review section.

How to sign up to Google Local

To get signed up at Google Local visit the Google Local Business Centre and start the sign up process. Lets go step by step through the stages. First you need to either create a Google account or if you have one sign in .

If you are creating an account the next page asks for basic information and a password…

then where you live…

Your Google account can be used on all the other google sites like Google Adwords - for paid advertising or Google Analytics - for website visitor tracking.

Once you have either created an account or logged in, you should have screen offering you the choice of add new business or upload a data file. Click on Add new business.

Next you need to complete your company information. Once you enter the postcode/zip code your business will appear on the map on the right. If the position isn’t quite right then click on the fix incorrect marker location link which is under the map. This allows you to adjust the position of the pin that is placed on the map. You will be able to drag the marker around with the mouse.

Then add business categories to your listing. Look for all that apply.

Then add opening hours if required.

Nearly there… Now tick any payment methods you accept, upload any photos or graphics. If you have a logo in electronic form upload that now.

You also have the opportunity to upload up to 5 video links from Youtube. If you do not have any videos on youtube that promote your business you need to create at least one. Easy ways to do this will appear in future articles.

Finally you need to be able to confirm your listing. You can do this my phone, sms or postcard. Whichever method you pick you will receive a PIN code to enter into your listing. The process is quickest if you use the phone or sms method but lets look at the postcard method.

Once you click submit you will either get an SMS, an automatic phone call with the PIN code or a message as follows for the postcard option.

Look out for the postcard and enter the PIN code when you get it. Simply return to the Google Local Business Centre - find your listing and enter the pin.

If you are using the other methods you will have a screen that asks for the PIN code. Enter it and save the page. Job done.

Once you have entered the PIN code it can take 3-6 weeks for your listing to appear.

How to get better rankings on Google Local

How does the listing order of business work.

As with anything from Google no one really knows 100% how it works but it seems to be based on

• distance between your business location and the searcher
• how many reviews and the quality score on the reviews
• whether your website uses the location names on the pages
• whether other sites link to you using the business type and location
• other databases they have access to

You can’t influence the first one but you can ask your happy customers to review your work. Note the reviews appear quickly but the number of reviews on the main listing takes a while to catch up. Having reviews will get your listing clicked on more and hopefully give customers confidence to contact you.

You can add your business address to every page of your website and make sure the phone number appears on the site somewhere.

You can add a page to your site mentioning local or regional towns. Such as a "here are local areas we serve" page making sure to mention the services you provide on the same page. It could also go on a frequently asked questions page under the question ‘Which areas do you cover?’

If you have any other ideas how to use Google Local or wish to share your experience of it or comment on this article please use the box below. We would love to hear from you.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google local, Google Maps, Google Sites, promoting your business

This video takes gives you an overview of the process know as Search Engine Optimisation - what it is? how it works? what to expect from a company doing search engine optimisation for your business.

It finishes with points to consider when doing your own optimisation or getting a company to do it for you.

Please feel free to comment on this video below.

Technorati Tags: search engine optimisation, SEO

Technorati Tags: itunes, podcast

The preposterous sounding title of this post is a direct quote from the lips of many a small business owner I have encountered. The root of this problem of course can be summed up nicely in something known as Parkinson’s LawSmall Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing, Sep 2008

The whole article is well worth a read. It is all too easy to find time just disappearing as work gets in the way of the important but not urgent tasks in a day.

Technorati Tags: duct tape marketing, marketing ideas

The degree of junkiness determines how quickly you click back and whether you click on any links or recommendations on the page.

It is a bit like the trust you put in different people’s recommendations. Some people you value their opinion highly others not so. So when you are creating any content it needs to be quality content if it is going to be any use.

Some of the tactics we recommend call for you create content on websites other than your own. When you are doing this you could spend the minimum of time to create this content but it will not perform very well for you.  It doesn’t have to be perfect - good enough is good enough.

Lets give you one example.

One very useful tactic is commenting on other websites where they allow it. You could comment something like "I love your site it was so cool." or you could read the page and make a useful comment. In this case someone will be approving the comments so junk is going to be history. But if it does get through no one is going to take any notice of it!

So don’t write anything that you are not proud to put your name to.

Technorati Tags: content quality, Search engine optimization, Web content, Web search engine