Internet Marketing and eCommerce Expert – Nigel Burke's Blog

What is Google Places?
Local business listings is very important in Google. If you do a local search which includes a place, town, city or local service, Google will display the local business box. That’s how important Google thinks local search results are.

What determines your Google Places Rank?
Everyone is wondering what the ranking factors for local search engine optimisation. Do you stuff your Google Places page with as many keywords as possible or what?

Here are the top 10 factors that determine your Google Places ranking – From Least important to most important -

What is Local SEO?
You may be wondering what exactly local seo is and how it can help your business. ‘Local Search Engine Optimisation’ is getting your business listed at the top of the search engine when local searches are performed.

A local search is defined as a search including a location, city, suburb, town, place, country or a local service.

Google Adwords is the sponsorship links that you see on any Google search. They appear above the organic search results and in the right column. They can also appear in the Google  content nextwork.

I have created hundreds of campaigns using Adwords and optimised campaigns for a lot of customers.

Many of the campaigns created by small business owners often have the same mistakes appearing time and time again.

I have complied this list of the 10 most common mistakes that advertisers make when creating and running their Google Adwords campaigns.

This is a wonderful introduction into the world of getting your business listed on the major search engines and business directories.

The book is from the US but the explanation of local search engine optimisation and Google Places information is great.

If you want a shortcut to the top of search engines, the local business listings in the major search engines may just help you.

If you do a local search, the major search engines may display a listing of local businesses.

There are currently rumours floating around the Internet that Google may introduce a payment system for paid content.

What is Newspass
Newspass will be a micropayments system for viewing premium content. This premium content listing in the search engine result pages will be indicated with a Newspass icon. When you click on the link, your Newspass account will have the cost deducted from it.

Split testing is a method used by search engine marketers to measure the effectiveness of changes to their campaigns.

A simple example would be running two ads with a different titles. The campaign may run for a week and the campaign manager will look at the results of the two ads including impressions, click through rate, conversions and cost per acquisition.

Internet advertising is proving to be one of the most effective and best returns on investment for advertisers – if you know what you are doing!

Internet advertising is easy to setup, maintain and measure it’s effectiveness. Every dollar is accounted for and every lead is followed.

You are able to setup test campaigns and measure every interaction very closely. You can setup micro campaigns that target very specific areas.

The advertising inventory is huge as well. If you have a large budget, you can easily spend that budget and reach everyone.

Mobile commerce allows consumers to browse, buy, transact and deal with a company using their mobile phone or device.

Magento is at the forefront for shopping cart software innovation with their new mobile storefront solution.

The Online Retail Expo is fast approaching. The expo and conference is on 6 to 9 July, 2010 at Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.

2010 ONLINE RETAIL INDUSTRY AWARDS FINALISTS:

1. Best Pure-Play Online Retailer
Deals Direct | www.dealsdirect.com.au
Appliances Online | www.appliancesonline.com.au
Little Dance Invitations | www.littledanceinvitations.com.au
Trixan Body | www.trixanbody.com.au

Imagine if there was a way where you could find out if someone mentioned your name, business name, product or service on the Internet.

Now you can with Google Alerts!

Why do you need to know?
Before I tell you how to setup a Google Alert, I need to let you know why it is so important to monitor this kind of activity.