It’s bad enough when vendors offer real estate SEO services and/or advice that isn’t worth a dime … but what about when the national organization that’s supposed to support real estate agents starts spreading around misinformation to its members? The National Association of REALTORS® offered up some SEO tips in its official magazine last month via an article titled “6 … Read More

Your office pool is fun, but how about competing against fellow search marketers far and wide? It’s time for the 4th Annual “SEO Madness” College Hoops Pool , where we all make our March Madness picks, and the winner gets the links. Teams and brackets are being announced today and you can sign-up now . Here’s what you need to … Read More

ClickZ is running an article today about Yelp’s current legal troubles. I’m quoted in the article (at the end) and I come across as a staunch defender of Yelp. While I do admire the loyalty they’ve built up amongst users, I’m actually more in the middle than the article portrays. I really believe Yelp needs to improve its overall messaging … Read More

This isn’t exactly news anymore, but it’s worth noting that two more reports this week confirm the idea that consumers tend to do their research online prior to buying offline/locally. The first is a Kelsey Group study that indicates 97% of consumers use the Internet to research products or services in their local area . What specific online research tools … Read More

My worlds are colliding. I mean my “U2 world” and my “SEO world.” I try to keep them separate, but this story makes that impossible. Check it out on the Somerset County Gazette web site. Apparently, a local/small business owner recently got a job fixing a broken GRAMMY Award that belongs to U2. The article makes several cheesy references to … Read More

That was one of the topics of Luther Lowe’s presentation Tuesday at the annual SearchFest conference in Portland. Lowe — Yelp’s Manager of Business Outreach — gave a generally clear description of what the company says are the benefits of advertising on Yelp. I say “generally” because he said that advertising on Yelp gets a business owner “SEO,” but he … Read More

The 4th annual SearchFest conference is in the books, and this one was a lot different than previous SearchFests. The venue was bigger, the crowd filled it, and — for the first time — there were three tracks running concurrently. I’m hoping to do another post on one content-related element from the show, so this post is only going to … Read More

If you’re reading this while at SearchFest 2010, a big welcome to you. Thanks for visiting SmallBusinessSEM.com. In my presentation, I mention a few web sites that you may not have had time to jot down while I was speaking. If that’s the case, here are all the references I made in chronological order: Nielsen: Consumers Trust Real Friends and … Read More

Last week’s SMX West conference was a unique one for me. I didn’t get to sit in on many sessions as an attendee because we were a bit short-handed at Search Engine Land, and I was pretty much working constantly on a variety of things for SEL. I live-blogged the keynotes, did the daily coverage roundups, wrote up a bunch … Read More

If you’re reading this while at SMX West, a big welcome to you. Thanks for visiting SmallBusinessSEM.com. In my presentation, I mention a half-dozen web sites that you may not have had time to jot down while I was speaking. If that’s the case, here are all the references I made in chronological order: GetListed.org Universal Business Listing Localeze Google … Read More