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Local Business Ads (LBAs) enable advertisers within specific business locations to target prospects within a defined geographic area. LBAs are geared to drive people directly to your physical business location, rather than just to your website.

Although LBAs can be displayed in Google’s organic search results the same as any AdWords ads, they have the added advantage of being displayed right on a Google Map itself. This is good because, when a user clicks your ad within the map, an info window expands, showing your business listing as seen in the screenshot below:

Google recently added a link to directions. This makes it super-easy for a prospect to learn exactly how to get to your location. They can also see a Street View…

…as well as select the Save to My Maps option.

Google is also working on new reporting features for Local Business Ads designed to report how many people opened your info window and clicked your various links. For more on Local Business Ads, check out Google’s FAQ. To set up your own ads follow these steps from the Google help files.

Web-based email is convenient. Anyone can easily set up an email account in minutes for free. You can access it from anywhere that has an Internet connection. But the drawback of web-based email is that you can’t get to your archived messages when you’re not online. If you’ve ever been on an airplane or in your car, and needed to retrieve directions or other information that was sent to you via email, well, you know you were previously SOL (and the “S” doesn’t stand for smiling).

That’s why Google is now making Gmail available even when you’re not online. You simply access your messages within the normal Gmail interface and then synchronize changes while you’re connected. Messages that you send while offline are now stored in your outbox and automatically sent as soon as you’re connected again.

Take note this feature relies on Google Gears—a set of open-source developer tools Google created to help build more powerful web applications. You must have Gears installed to use Gmail offline. (Another option is to simply use the Google Chrome browser which already has Google Gears pre-installed).

To access offline mode in your Gmail account, start by installing Google Gears. Then go to your settings and look for the Labs tab near the top of your screen. Once there…

1. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
2. Click Save Changes.
3. After your browser reloads, you’ll see a new Offline0.1 link in the upper right hand corner of your account, next to your username.

Cool! …thanks Google.

Google Suggest is moving out of Google Labs and into the regular search results at Google.com, potentially providing a new way to get traffic to sites that aren’t currently showing up on the first page of Google’s search results.

Google Suggest is just what is sounds like. It suggests alternative queries for you in real time as you type your searches into Google. Those suggestions are primarily based on the queries that other Google users have searched for…

As you can see in the image above, there’s been a lot of interest in Bigfoot recently (due to claims of Bigfoot being recently captured). That interest has translated into large numbers of searches for queries like searching for bigfoot, causing that query to show up on Google Suggest when you type search.

Mid-tail searches of 3-4 words which are currently getting a lot of traffic are likely to receive even more traffic once this new feature goes live, as users are channeled towards the queries Google suggests for them. Longer-tail searches of 5 words or more that don’t get much traffic to begin with are likely to get even less as many users opt to use the shorter phrases Google displays.

As for your own site, you should be able to get good traffic out of this new feature if you can generate enough publicity and reach that tipping point where your keywords are shown in this suggestion box.

For example, TravelRepublic.co.uk could see significantly increased traffic since, even though they don’t appear on the first page of search results for the query travel. That’s because they do appear in the list of search suggestions that Google provides.

That’s most likely caused by TravelRepublic.co.uk having a good offline marketing campaign that drives a large number of searches for their brand. Google is aware of these searches, and thus includes travel republic in their list of Google Suggestions for the very high traffic keyword travel.

This could mean that your offline branding and advertising efforts could have a very real impact on your search engine traffic, particularly if you brand around a phrase that starts with a keyword that already gets very high search engine traffic.

More from the official Google Blog.

Seth Godin said that. But I personally think that it can easily be a job for anyone.

The problem with search engine optimization

SEO is the purported science of optimizing your webpage so that you rise to the top of the listings in Google and Yahoo!

The theory is that a huge number of people find what they’re looking for via search, that virtually all of these people only look at the first page of the results and that if you don’t tweak your page, you’re doomed.

I just got a note from someone asking me for a recommendation, and when I said I didn’t think that most SEO was worth the money, he asked me why. So here goes:

1. Because it’s a black art, it’s really hard to tell who’s good and who’s not. Andrew Goodman is good, there are people who are less reputable… no matter what, it’s hard to guarantee you’ll get your money’s worth.

2. my real problem, though, starts with an analogy. Imagine your retail store was on a road that no one ever drove down unless they found it on a map. And then imagine that they redid the maps every week and the mapmakers refused to tell you exactly how they went about deciding which roads to draw and in which hierarchy to place them.

Could you imagine finding investors for that sort of store? Could you imagine being confident enough in your ability to grow that business that you’d want to work there?

Lucking into (and it is luck) the top slot of a great word on Google is not a business plan. It’s superstition. It’s blind faith.

If you want to grow your business, you need a reliable and scalable and dependable way to spend time and money and have it turn into traffic and revenue. In the real world, companies do that with real estate and with advertising. Online, it’s about adwords and site design.

If you can figure out how to BUY (not luck into) keyword searches that bring you X number of visitors, and then you can figure out how to design your site so that Y% of those visits turn into customers, you win. And nobody can stop you from growing all you care to grow.

Take a look at The South Beach Diet(TM) > Online. They spend more than a million dollars a year on online promotion (keywords, etc.). They spend a bunch more on optimizing the site. The result? One of the bestselling diet books ever written (4 million copies sold) plus more than 100,000 subscribers. Marketing that pays for itself.

No magic, no superstition. Just planning and measurement and hard work.

SEOs are not a shortcut to success, at least not for 99% of the companies out there. You won’t win by fooling Google into listing you first for a common search term. You will win once you figure out the simple mechanics of turning strangers into friends and friends into customers.

ARTful Linkbait Strategists do some or all of the following…

1. They distill multiple sources of information into Condensed, Cumulative Reports—thus creating Valuable Resources. In some cases they develop the ability to generate these resources internally. In other cases they outsource the tasks. Either way, they post valuable lists, reports, or tools that are 100% informational, highly useful, streamlined, and easy to link to while presenting the material from their own perspective.Some of the best linkbait resources are simply lists and how-to guides. In the report I read : How to Use del.icio.us to Quickly Build Amazing Content-Rich Articles that Attract Links Like a Magnet! they have discussed the details of creating such resources. This report is basically a step-by-step guide to dominating the search results and we highly recommend you read and act on it if you haven’t already.It isn’t necessary that your linkbait be “amazing” to get links. But it must look comprehensive and be useful. Make a list of topics your customers are interested in and start cranking out articles that are loosely focused within your niche having titles like…
   • 100 Tools and Resources for…
   • 50 Tips to…
   • 100+ Resources to Help You…
   • 75 Online Resources for…
   • 30+ Simple Things You Can Do to…
   • 25 Ways to…

   Be sure to mine sites like Delicious and Digg for ideas on article topics that people will link to. Ideally, we suggest you crank out one of these articles on a weekly basis.

   At its simplest, an article can be “100 Resources for…” followed by a list of 100 sites, tools, and articles you’ve found online related to that topic, with a short summary of each. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn how many people tend to link to such articles and resource lists.

2. They systematically monitor the News. They watch for relevant stories they can chime in on. By lending their expertise to the topic in a timely manner, they present a voice on the subject that tends to gather links.Let’s suppose for example that we sell remote controlled model airplanes. It’s pretty simple to monitor Google News for keyphrases like remote controlled aircraft so that, on a weekly basis, we can review news stories within our niche and then write about what is topically hot. Here’s one story that caught my eye;
   

   Stanford’s “autonomous” helicopters teach themselves to fly Stanford Report - Aug 29, 2008 The aircraft, brightly painted Stanford red, is an off-the-shelf radio control helicopter, with instrumentation added by the researchers…

   Any one of a number of slants could be employed while slicing and dicing this story. For instance, how will this effect the sport of remote controlled aircraft for the hobbyist if, in fact, the flying can be done by a computer that learns? …you get the idea.

3. They’re constantly looking for opportunities to present a Contrarian Perspective on a controversial topic. They argue a position that contradicts prevailing wisdom.One controversial perspective could be that the price of gas hasn’t actually risen much at all. Instead, it’s the dollar that’s fallen evidenced by the price increases across a broad range of commodities which might include homes, gold, imported foods, and so forth. The fact that the federal reserve has kept the interest rates so low for so long, and that they’ve been paying the government’s bills with printed money, could be used to support the premise.If you are a commodities broker or financial services specialist, this could be a contrarian perspective for you to write about within this currently hot and controversial topic.
4. They intelligently harness the power of Fear. At first blush, this is my least favorite however there are certain industries that lend themselves to this style of social promotion. Topics like personal privacy, ID theft, radar detectors, child care, insurance and so forth have successfully harnessed the ‘power of fear’ to promote their goods and services since their beginnings.Once again, the News Feeds are an excellent source for stories that can be re-reported in the light of an “expert’s” opinion (like yours).
5. They employ the universal language of Humor. Ok, if the iPhone in the blender didn’t seem funny to you, then maybe you could take the Jeff Foxworthy approach:
   • If you cringe whenever you see a site listed as ‘Untitled‘ in the search results above your listing, then you might be an SEO.
   • If your response to your spouse’s inquiry regarding your son’s whereabouts is: ‘he’s 404‘ …then you might be an SEO.
   • If you’ve ever spoken in terms of having to ‘301 redirect‘ your focus from one task to another, then you might be an SEO

   And, in every case…

   6. They develop their social networks.

While getting your site on the front page of popular social media sites like Digg and del.icio.us can send a huge surge of traffic, that traffic typically dissipates within a day or two. StumbleUpon’s unique algorithm, on the other hand, continues to serve popular pages to new users every day. That means StumbleUpon can send a steady stream of continuous traffic to your site.

Note, however, that like all social media traffic, Stumblers almost never buy anything or click on ads. That’s why one of the most important laws of social media marketing is…

Don’t try to sell to social media users!

Social media traffic is link building traffic. Try to sell Stumblers something and your traffic will quickly disappear under an avalanche of thumbs down. Instead, your goal is to serve Stumblers the kinds of pages they want to see, so you can attract links to your site from those Stumblers who have their own blogs and websites.

Although supporting non-profits is important, you’re correct that you could be wasting a lot of ad views—and a lot of money—by not replacing those public service ads (PSAs) with an alternate ad that generates revenue.Google displays PSAs if your account is still so new that Google hasn’t determined what your pages are about, or if there’s no other ad inventory to display. Filling that space with an alternate ad of your choosing is a great way to ensure you are fully monetizing your web site for every visitor.

The process isn’t difficult and involves uploading an image to your server (such as an affiliate ad, an alternate PSA of your choosing or an ad promoting your site) that will be served automatically by Google when the need arises. I’ll go ahead and break down the process in 9 easy steps

1. Select an image ad size that is the same size as the ad you want to replace. If the ad size you want to replace is a 468×60 banner, make sure your replacement ad is sized 468×60.

   Create images for each ad size you want to replace. AdSense does not auto-resize ads, so if you serve more than one ad size on your site you need to upload alternate ads in each format.

2. Create a new blank webpage for each of your replacement ads. No title or meta information is necessary on these pages, just a small amount of HTML code.

   Place on this page either the ad code from an affiliate program (such as a banner from Commission Junction or PSAs from another charity) or create an image ad that promotes your products and link it to your own site’s pages.

3. Save this new alternate ad page with a file name you will remember, such as alt_ad.html. You may want to include the actual ad size in the filename if you have multiple alternate ads planned (for example, using alt_ad_468×60.html).
4. Once your new ad page is correctly named and formatted, upload it to your site. Make a note of the full URL, such as…

   http://www.example.com/alt_ad_468×60.html

   Add a robots.txt exclusion or a noindex meta tag on these ad pages to ensure that Google doesn’t mistakenly index them. Either method will work.

5. Once you have uploaded your new AdSense alternate ads, login to your AdSense account and click AdSense Setup and select AdSense for Content.
6. Choose your ad type, format, and colors.
7. Scroll down to the Alternate Ad or Color section. To provide an alternate ad, select Show ads from another URL and enter the URL of the page containing your ad.

   If you’d prefer to just provide a solid block of color in that ad space, select Fill space with a solid color, then select an HTML color code. You can also cause the ad space to disappear completely using a collapsing ad unit.

   The point here is to always show revenue-generating ads, so we’d avoid the color blocks and collapsing ad units. It’s always better to show actual ads instead.

8. Click Continue.
9. Copy and paste the ad code onto your site’s pages.

To view the Google help section dealing with this issue, see How do I implement an alternate ad?

Defining your own alternate ads guarantees that a revenue-generating ad always appears on your site, thereby maximizing your site’s income potential. If you’re monetizing your site with AdSense, we highly recommend setting up your own alternate ads.

This approach also allows you to begin experimenting with new ways of making money with your site. You may find that affiliate ads are more profitable and less intrusive than AdSense.