TO LIST OR NOT TO LIST?

ENSURING THAT YOUR GOOGLE PLACES LISTING IS NOT REMOVED FROM GOOGLE MAPS

Well, Google is up to it again! 

Recently, they made a significant change to the Google Places Quality Guidelines which affects the 7-pack and Maps-based results. 

How will this affect you? For anyone who lists a business address and has little-to-no actual visitors coming to the specified location, choosing this option definitely impacts your ranking and may result in your listing being removed from Google Maps.

Here’s the latest Google Places Quality Guidelines:

Basically, to ensure that your Google Places listing does not get downgraded in the ranks or completely removed from Google Maps, there are three different options to choose once you log on to your Google Places account.

Scenario 1: Customers are served at the location listed on Google Places. Show your location!

Show your address if your business is a brick-and-mortar establishment and serves customers at the location listed. All you need to do is select: No, all customers come to the business location.

Scenario 2: Customers are served at the location listed on Google Places and also at other sites. Show your location and define your service areas!

Include your address and define the additional areas traveled if you have a home-based business that serves some customers at your home and some at other sites.

First you need to select:Yes, this business serves customers at their locations. Then, select eitherDistance from one location with set mileage or select List of areas served, and then add the areas.

Scenario 3: Customers are not serviced at the location listed on Google Places. Hide your address!

Play coy with your address if you have a home-based business and travel to all customers. Select: Do not show my business address on my Maps listing

Important: selecting this option DOES NOT negatively impact your local rankings!

You might not be sure how your current selections are set regarding Service Areas and Location Settings. Take the time to log into your Google Places account and choose the most appropriate settings based your particular scenario. Identifying the right selection for your business will help ensure that your listing to stay up in the local ranking and not go off the Google Maps’ radar.

PRESENTING ... THE PRIMERO SYSTEMS SITE

We'll make this short and sweet.

Primero Systems, the parent company to Webtreepro, used the beauty of its CMS to design a striking and streamlined new website. Take a look!

http://www.primerosystems.com  

SEIZE THE EXTRA DAY

Happy Leap Year! Today, our calendars fall back into step with our solar system, February puffs out its chest a little bit more, Disneyland leaves on the lights all night, and we celebrate the birthday of a friend born in 1984, who turns a proud 7 this afternoon.

Why not designate today as an opportunity to accomplish those things that never seem to find their way to fruition?

• Call one of your best clients just to say hello and thank you.
• Call one of your most challenging clients just to say hello and thank you.
• Write a blog post.
• Take a critical look at your website. Walk (click) through the pages like a visitor would.
• Design new business cards.
• Read an industry-focused whitepaper.
• Sit down with a coworker and learn what projects are pain points and which are a pleasure.
• Celebrate an extra day before taxes are due.
• Clean out your desk.
• Clean out your refrigerator.
• Take a walk and absorb the architecture of man and of nature.
• Watch the sunset.

12 TIPS TO KEEP YOUR WEBSITE ON TOP IN 2012

We're guessing you have a lot to say about your business. Don't be shy! Your website is the perfect place to tell everything wonderful and true. And with a dynamic CMS, it's never too early or too late. Below are some tips to ensure it's as striking as can be:

1. We said this last year, and will say it again. Update frequently. In fact, take a minute now to make a change on your site. The blog post will wait for you. 
 
2. Do you have a blog of your own? If not, we recommend you start one immediately, and cross-link with your website. On the Webtreepro site, we incorporated this blog into the menu.
   
   
3. Pull ideas for content from anywhere and everywhere on the web.
 
4. Consider spending more time in SEO-land. Your website will thank you. Check out www.localsevens.com for how to take it all the way.
 
5. Make sure your website is visible on social media profiles. If someone notices you there, either through a link or contact, you better be ready to receive them! Likewise, promote your SM pages on your website with either simple icons or interactive widgets.
   
   
6. Write down inspiration as soon as it hits. This can be on the subway, during a five-course dinner, at 3am in the moonlight, or while running for a touchdown in the Super Bowl. You will be glad you did.
   
   
7. Every now and then, ask for third-party feedback on your website. Sometimes they see things that we're simply too close to realize.
   
   
8. And, if you have the opportunity, ask for expert feeback. Neon orange may not be the best color for your website after all. Or perhaps your navigation could use some tidying up. Be flexible to suggestions.
   
   
9. Consider writing some helpful whitepapers or presentations, and use these as lead-generation tools. Promote them on the appropriate pages of your website to capture visitor information and illustrate your expertise.
   
   
10. Make your calls-to-action stand out. Use complementary colors, active words and clear direction.
    
    
11. Find inspiration in other websites, even those that may be in a compeletly different arena. Beautiful design and engaging content transcends industries.
    
    
12. Read the news. This is just good common sense. 

WHAT WE LEARNED IN 2011

There must be someone nudging the clock hands of life forward, because every year seems to go by quicker than the last. Here's some things the last year has taught us:

• People don't want to buy products, they want to buy solutions.
• Jack may need you for a different solution than Jill. Love them both.
• Working on three sites from four countries in one week is simple with Webtreepro!
• Facebook can frustrate most of its users, who will continue to use it. Most likely for non-work items during their work time.
• There is miles of road between Internet Explorer 7, 8 and 9
• Google Chrome is becoming a household name.
• Backlink, backlink, backlink.
• Netflix validated the most important lesson of business -- if you think you know what your customers want, you better be sure to ask.
• The last Harry Potter movie marked the end of an era for a large percentage of the world.
• Content management systems are becoming ever more popular as people want true control and flexibility.

BENEFITS OF A SOLID CMS (3 OF NUMEROUS)

Looking to easily build and manage the websites for your franchise operation? Look no further. Webtreepro is the ultimate in simplicity, all while featuring a robust offering of functionality. The benefits to the franchises and their franchisees? Let me count the ways! Stay tuned for Volume 4, and see yet another benefit of using Webtreepro.

BENEFIT 3:

SEO is an integral part of your website package. Considering the amount of pride you (rightfully) take in each and every page, isn't it much more rewarding to know that your perfected site can be found by everyone who is looking for it? And maybe some who aren't as well?

Without a CMS, on-site optimization can become a major hassle. Even something as simple as changing a page title means passing the baton to IT or engineering, waiting for them to make the adjustment, and then checking to ensure it was completed accurately. And this is only a singular change.

The best CMSs will allow users to control their SEO effort right from the editor. When using Webtreepro, it's as easy as visiting the built-in SEO Center. Enter met-tag descriptions and page titles, edit body headings, integrate Google Analytics, and incorporate keywords directly into your headers, footers or articles.

And, while you're logged in, don't forget to apply alternative text to those images. Google can do many things, but "reading" a photo isn't one of them ... yet.

Happy Optimizing!

WHAT'S THE FLAVOR OF YOUR BUSINESS?

Last week a co-worker and I had the delicious fortune of attending an annual Taste of Main Street local event. Participating cafés and restaurants set up vendors on the sidewalk outside with small (or large) samples of their best food, and hungry attendees glide from table to table with fork in hand, until they simply cannot stretch their stomachs anymore.

Fundamental to this event is the variety of tidbits available for sampling. They are sizzling, they are alluring, they are delicious. But they are abundant. Although the inexperienced attendee might make the mistake of stopping at every storefront (as I did for three years before finally learning my lesson), it is simply not feasible to taste it all. And the smartest vendors offer something unique that might entice people back for a repeat visit — at full price.

As I looked at the stylized restaurant names illuminated above the doors, the colorful vinyl booths through the windows, the different faces behind the counters, I was reminded of the importance of distinguishing your business from every other. Of the 20 Italian places lining the street ... what makes one most appealing? Why should anyone make room in their appetite (and wallets) for yours?

There are simply too many options available to sit back and wait for foot (or web) traffic. You must create an attraction, and you must maintain that engagement. Your name should be visible and appealing, your atmosphere should be engaging and memorable, and your plating (or message) should be consistent and unique. Perhaps easier said than done, but you know the value of your service. Everything that touches your audience should reflect this confidence as well. If you were visiting your website for the first time ... would you come back for more?

A palatable site is the best kind of all.

LOST IN TRANSLATION — WEB WRITING DECODED

One of the truly marvelous changes that has occurred with the emergence of the Internet is the worldwide connectivity that is instant and permanent. A phone call once pricey and inconvenient can be conducted over Skype for only a few cents a minute. An ad that used to require exhausting placement research is simple to arrange via Google and can be seen at the same time by someone in Canada and someone in Hong Kong. And the ultimate marketing tool, your website, avails itself 24/7 to the entire planet, not just for an instant but forever. Or so it should be.

The nature of the web necessitates your site is easy to navigate, your language is crisp and your message is universal. How to prepare a page then for friendly reading? Some tips are below!

1. Keep it short, keep it sweet. Interior pages may be comprehensive, but don't scare prospects away from your home page by attempting to express every benefit of your service. Or, if you simply have too much to say, consider incorporating a slide show with different value points highlighted on each image.
    
   
2. Avoid using superfluous flowery language. You might be a fabulous writer with an extensive vocabulary, but visitors who do not speak English as their mother tongue will find it challenging to work through your words. Write well, but write for everyone.
   
   
3. The same can be said for headers and menu items. Save the fancy words for your targeted marketing pieces. Links like "Home," "About," etc. are expected and understood; not everyone will know where "Foyer" or "Family Ties" lead within your website "house."
   *An exception may be if you do creative work and your customers expect a certain level of whimsy reflected on your website.
   
   
4. It's not a good idea to reference local agenda that is meaningless to prospects who don't live nearby. Although some businesses, like hotels and restaurants, can leverage this information, most companies will have too broad of a marketplace to interest visitors with neighborhood news.
   
   
5. Internet browsers like Chrome will prompt to translate text on sites that are not in the user's selected language. Make sure you take advantage of this by avoiding words as images and using a CMS that will cleanly wrap content around graphics.
   
   
6. Maybe it's a balmy 75 degrees at your business headquarters, but any clients below the equator will be experiencing winter during your August barbecue. If you have an international following, consider their feelings.

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR SEO DESTINY...WITH LOCAL SEVENS 

Local Sevens is the SEO sister to Webtreepro. It's a key component to making your online presence known and your attractively designed website visible! A business that does not show up in search results may as well exist in the furthest reaches of the desert, miles from civilization and certainly absent from the minds of prospective customers. 

You may have spent some time in the Webtreepro SEO center, targeting the optimization capabilities built in your site layout. This robust set of modifiers makes the most of your on-page presence. For a fully comprehensive off-page strategy, Local Sevens takes the reins.

Sit back, relax and let us drive your website to the top of search engine results. Ensure local search success where no one has to trudge through miles of virtual sand to make your acquaintance. 

www.localsevens.com

BENEFITS OF A SOLID CMS (2 OF NUMEROUS)

Looking to easily build and manage the websites for your franchise operation? Look no further. Webtreepro is the ultimate in simplicity, all while featuring a robust offering of functionality. The benefits to the franchises and their franchisees? Let me count the ways! Stay tuned for Volume 3, and see yet another benefit of using Webtreepro.

BENEFIT 2:

A content management system shouldn't have to be accompanied by a user guide that is thicker than Webster's Unabridged. Part of the appeal in acquiring a CMS is that the system does the work FOR YOU, rather than forcing extensive research on how to perform simple tasks and leave you wondering, Oh, where on earth is that highlight function?

The best CMSs will build upon what is familiar and understood. Complex procedures and resources, though attractive in label, offer little if a user cannot compete tasks organically. The goal is to make life easier, not complicate it with yet another set of steps to be filed away in an overworked short-term memory.

Webtreepro was created so if we had to boil the entire idea down to one word, it would be intuition. We want every piece to be as easy as riding a bike ... once learned, never forgotten. Our editor is designed to mimic the controls in Microsoft Word, with easy text formatting, image insertion, table set-up and more. The content environment is what we informally refer to as WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get), meaning your published page will look exactly as it does during the editing process. Could it be any more natural?

We'll let you decide for yourself!

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