Website Promotion is not Voodoo

I placed a comment on Greg Sterling’s writeup of the Yelp issue pointing him to my post.

In a reply to my comment Greg Sterling says, and I totally agree:

“There also need to be clear rules at these sites to that SMBs understand the “Hows” and the “Whys” of these systems and they’re not surprised by something they thought was OK.”

In I got this link by email from one of our clients (for Botox, San Francisco folks can’t go wrong with Dr. Roy Kim - yes, it’s a blatant link-drop) and it got me going on a pet peeve of mine:

Small Business owners giving up control over their own online destiny.

This post is in response to a request for Business How Tos at Sparkplugging.com in response to the question “How can I increase the profitability of my business?”

A little background

Way back toward the end of my time punching someone else’s clock I had an idea for a service I was calling “Outsource My Brain”.

Sadly, I can’t tell you exactly what was said (I’d have to kill you apparently according to the organizers) but Matt McGee of SmallBusinessSEM.com gave a fantastically detailed presentation on all facets of local search.

I strongly recommend this conference for small businesses interested in internet marketing and those who might help them (like us).

In this morning’s session at Small Business Marketing Unleashed Jennifer Laycock was talking about the value of ratings and reviews as a component of social media.

For those of you who don’t know, Search Engine Guide is putting on a show this week focused on small businesses: Small Business Marketing Unleashed.