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http://localsearch.mediaonepro.com/

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We are proud to announce the launch of the Official Website for International Musician Jaymes Vaughan!

Media One Pro understands that there are over 120 CSF’s (Critical Success Factors) involved in Google‘s Search Algorithm. Learn more about Google’s Guidelines.

Here they are in no particular order.

Site Structure
HTML
Inbound Links
Outbound Links
LSI
site trust
included information
internal links
w3c
IP address
meta title
meta desc
meta keywords
author tag
language tag
unique content
url structure
age of site
age of stableness
neighborhood
site map
contact info
privacy policy
terms of use
age of content
frequency of updates
completeness of content
use of media
hosting
amount of page that is different
lack of spam
% of people who use back button to go back to search results
ctr on search results
pagerank
heading tag
tables
<b>
<strong>
<i>
<p>
font sizes
lists
no follow tag
rss
black list of spam
alt tag
doctype
.htaccess
robots.txt
css
copyright tag
grammar of content
ease and readability of content
link to mattcutts.com
layout of content
whois data
do they sell links?
do they buy links?
reciprocal links
use of pop ups
use of malicious code
disabling back button
trademarks
business data with state agencies
business credit rating
BBB rating
tax liens
glossary / explanation of terms
press releases
media mentions
site in multiple languages
800 number
news
awards
help page
use of cookies
registration on site
anchor text
domain
FAQ
site search
email updates
text version of site
related content
amount of people searching for url
natural site growth
clean html
comments in html
lack of bad language on site
link to yahoo sucks web page
cloaking
doorway pages
frames
site wide links
redirects
affiliate links
real presence
size of html
use of automated tools
cleaning of site over time
red flags
geographic keyword consideration
number of ways content can be found on site
other things on server
other things on IP
location of server
protection of server
unique pictures / media
ease of navigation
right “language” for content
same voice
local info
all included info
complete site
404
dead ends
pages that seem like search results
topical
not inter-mixing links
simple homepage title

Turns out that SERP’s can vary based on browser used, cookies stored and login.

It can be a daunting task to market your online business. With all the competition on the web, there are many companies vying for the top spot in any niche. With new technologies come new challenges for an Internet marketer and being at the forefront is a great challenge. You have to not only place your website in front of the eyes of your customer, but you must compel them to click on your link. After that, it becomes a challenge of keeping them on your site and finally, choosing you over the rest.
Entrepreneurs spend tons of money coming up with innovative and attention-grabbing advertisements to increase awareness of there brand. While traditional advertising methods have shown to be effective in the past, today they’re slowly fading like the dinosaur. Online marketing and promotion have outstripped conventional advertising strategies. Search engine optimization is emerging to be the way forward for any business, online or off.

SEO has been around for years, yet a lot of business owners are still not fully aware of how powerful this marketing tool this can be. If you do not know where to begin with SEO, an SEO expert may guide you in utilizing SEO techniques to increase traffic to your site. Here are six reasons why as a business owner it is imperative that you hire the services of an SEO consultant in order to maintain a competitive edge in marketing your online business.

1. Any business can have a website, but how valuable is it if no one knows about it? Internet users who search for your product or service are the hottest potential customers. These customers need to be directed to your site somehow so they can choose you over the rest. This is why it is critical to obtain first page rankings for search terms that relate to your business. Here is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Experts come in. They can guide you through the process of building up your website rankings within the popular search engines.

2. A true SEO expert will have vast knowledge of not just a few techniques, but many that are critical in the success of your online marketing campaign. It is not enough just to create topical articles with back links to your domain at content directories. There is a lot more than trading links or publishing content. An SEO Expert will have a wide arsenal of SEO strategies and can utilize the best combination for your business.

3. To be successful in growing your business, it’s important to discover your true areas of weakness and to be resourceful in finding the best consultant for this. A good SEO advisor will be able to analyze and determine your weak points and develop strategies to strengthen these core areas.

4. The greatest value in SEO is simply the opportunity to increase your profit in relation to the expenditure with the SEO company. For example, a monthly expense of $1,000 in SEO services can be recouped by the gain of $8,000 in profit by the influx of new business that has been a result of the SEO expert’s efforts.

5. The benefits of SEO don’t stop when the service does. If you have invested heavily in SEO over time, then the higher rankings of your website remain, even if you stop the service for a time. In advertising, the business stops when the ads stop. The only downside is that if you discontinue SEO, you stand the chance of your competition catching up. That is why is it critical to have a SEO maintenance plan to maintain your high rankings.

6. The costs of SEO are generally less expensive than those of traditional advertising. For example, a directory listing (Yellow Pages) can run in the thousands. And the only benefit is that you can be found in that specific directory. With SEO, your website is found EVERYWHERE and on the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing). Most people search on these search engines and less and less people utilize paid directories.

If you are a new business or an established one but seeking an injection of sales, a true SEO expert can be the hidden edge that you are seeking. Be sure to take your time and choose wisely. An experience SEO consultant will have client references and case studies to prove that they can get the job done.

About the Author:
Steven Kim, aka “Dr SEO”, has been performing SEO services in Las Vegas for over twelve years. His expertise has helped many in the realm of online marketing. For more information, visit his website, Media One Pro.

How much do you spend on Yellow Pages advertising each year? More important, are you getting your money’s worth?

If you are not reviewing your Yellow Pages ad results on a regular basis, you may be tossing hard-earned dollars down the drain. Yellow Pages ads have a number of built-in limitations that may reduce the effectiveness of your advertising dollar and restrict your ability to reach new patients.

These limitations include:

• High cost. Depending on its size and location, a Yellow Pages ad can cost up to $20,000 per year. And you can easily spend another $5,000 designing a customized ad. At those rates, it takes a lot of customers just to break even on the cost of the ad. Plus, studies show that the phone directory companies continue to raise their fees far beyond current inflation rates.
• Cluttered media. You spend a lot of money to design and place your ad, and where do you end up? Depending on the size of your market, right next to dozens, perhaps even hundreds of companies all competing for your next customer.
• Lack of flexibility. In today’s mass-media world, it takes a variety of messages to reach your audience and motivate them to contact you. Yet, once your Yellow Pages ad goes into the directory, that’s it. You can’t make any changes for a full 12 months.
• Difficult to test. Because of their inflexibility, Yellow Pages ads don’t allow you to test different marketing approaches. Once you place an ad, you have to wait a year to test a new headline or message. And unless a patient says they found you through the phone directory, you have no way of knowing the effectiveness of your ad.
• Reach the wrong market. Yellow Pages ads tend to attract only elderly and non-internet savvy. While these people can augment your regular clientele, they’re not the kind of customers upon which you can build a healthy, growing business.

With the Yellow Pages, it depends entirely on what you’re advertising. If I owned a shoe store that specialized in orthopedics, I would take out a large full page ad. The elderly who are in need of orthopedics still use this directory.

It’s all about your demographic.

There are several good reasons to advertise in the Yellow Pages, but it’s nowhere near as valuable as it once was.  All advertising (especially print) is undergoing a major revolution.  Search engines have taken over as the method of finding products and services.

That aside, there is also a tangible SEO benefit to having your website linked in directories like this. However, the cost of the link is most often not worth the investment.  If you wish to use Yellow Pages, then try it once.  Use a unique phone number and a unique website.  Negotiate very hard with the sales representative.  They often charge ten times more than the fair market price on print advertising.  Don’t get scammed!  And carefully monitor the responses you receive.

Otherwise you are best to utilize the current major marketing method of SEO and Social Media.  Even late adopters such as the elderly are catching on to this.  The simplicity of looking things up via Google and Bing have replaced the cumbersome task of thumbing through a yellow pages book.

And more and more people are becoming aware of what directories really are.  A place to pay for advertising.  And people want to know what’s fair information, not what some company has paid to make you believe!

Contact Media One Pro if you would like to learn more about the advantages of SEO/Pay Per click Marketing and Social Media.  Leave the yellow dinosaur (yellow pages) in the past.

Punch Above your Weight Online – Localized search results have recently experienced a major overhaul within the Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) which has resulted in a fantastic opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses.

Local search results were previously relegated to a small map, which would appear within the first page of results, but now they enjoy first page domination for local search terms.

The benefit of this to small businesses is that they can now appear above their much larger revivals who are relegated to the last few results on page one of Google.

Don’t miss out on local search results; they’re your next customers. Here’s 10 tips to help you capture them:

1. Claim your Google Places listing – it’s easy to do and if one doesn’t exist for your business then you can quickly and simply create one. What is it? A Google Places listing is effectively a profile attached to Google’s local search results. It is important because Google ranks these profiles above all others in their new first page local search results.

2. Add pictures to your Google Places listing. The effectiveness of your Google places listing is impacted by its completeness. Images will not only flesh out your listing, but when they appear in the search results, besides your Google Places listing, they are eye-catching and attractive which will increase clicks.

3. Gather citations – citations are instances on the web where your business is mentioned, Google uses the consistency of the information it finds and the authority of the referring site to boost your rank in local search engine results. The quality as well as volume of citations is an important factor in local search engine optimization.

4. Include your locality in on-page optimization – revisit your META and Title Tags to ensure your town is included wherever possible. Make sure your address appears on every page and that you have a contact page.

5. Submit your site to local directories including Yelp, Merchant Circle, local Chamber of Commerce and business directories. Local directories will have greater relevance in local search as it narrows your field of operation for Google to a localized area.

6. Manage your online exposure – make sure the information distributed across the web that pertains to your business is managed carefully. Trawl local directories and existing listings, double-check that your details are correct and that they match both your Google Places contact information as well as your websites contact page.

7. Get your reviews and testimonials on the web – no doubt you will already have testimonials collected from customers, these need to go online as well as in other marketing materials. Put a process in place of asking satisfied customers to review you online if at all possible. Pen a short email with instructions of where and how you would like the review left and send this to all satisfied customers.

8. Use a local phone number instead of a 0800, 0845 or 0870 – this again refines your location making it easier for search engines to place you within a specific region.

9. Target local keywords – when link building make sure you target some local variations on your keywords in the anchor text of your links.

10. Use your supply network – think about local search as being similar to networking. No doubt you will already have a network of local contacts, associates and suppliers who all allow your business to thrive. Simply transfer this network online by linking to each other.

Local search is set to dominate first page results for all local search terms. Small, local businesses should take advantage of this by implementing some or all of the tips above which will allow them to compete with much larger businesses who have until now monopolized the first page results by investing in aggressive SEO campaigns.

If you find local search engine optimization confusing or simply don’t have the time to optimize your local online presence you can call on the of an SEO expert like Media One Pro. For Google Places listing and local search engine optimization visit www.mediaonepro.com.

Article courtesy of Kriss Davies of Liberty Marketing

For further proof, just take a gander at new Nielsen research out today. It says Americans spend nearly a quarter of the time they’re on the Internet from their PC, or about six hours a month, on social-networking sites and blogs. That’s a quantum leap from a year ago and underscores the growing power of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The new research also reveals U.S. consumers spend the plurality of their time online, or 36% of it, communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal e-mail and instant messaging.

The rise of social networks has enhanced consumption of videos, movies and news and sports articles. “Friends and family are endorsing content to others,” says Dave Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen.

And the face of that audience is getting older: Twice as many Americans over 50 visited social networks than kids under 18, Nielsen says.

The newfound zeal for the digital lifestyle is epitomized by folks like Dee Jones, 63, who works at a utility company in New Jersey. She says she uses Facebook to connect with co-workers and friends, and Caring.com, a website to exchange viewpoints.

A year ago, she wasn’t part of Facebook, which has more than 500 million members. Now, she uses it every other day. “It’s a new way for me to socialize,” she says. “And I definitely e-mail a lot.”

The research on fixed Internet (PC) use, for June, also revealed:

•Online games, led by Zynga’s wildly popular FarmVille, overtook personal e-mail to become the second most popular activity. Games accounted for 10% of time spent — eclipsing e-mail, which dropped to 8% from 11.5%.

Half of all Americans online spend some time playing games.

•Videos or movies are another favorite:U.S. consumers, on average, streamed such content three hours, 15 minutes, in June.

•Predictions of the demise of e-mail and instant messaging are premature, the study says. Though both declined in use, e-mail remains the third heaviest activity online (8%) while instant messaging was fifth, at 4%.

“Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the Web, nearly half of U.S. online time is spent on three activities — social networking, playing games and e-mailing,” says Dave Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen.

As social networking gains in popularity, its newer members tend to be older, more racially diverse and more varied by social class, says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Still, Americans use the Internet differently from their smartphones and other mobile devices.

Despite a double-digit increase (28%) in time devoted to social-networking services, e-mail activity remained dominant on mobile devices — up to 42% from 37%. Portals such as Yahoo and AOL remain the second heaviest activity (12% of time).

Smartphone sales are expected to account for a majority of phones in the U.S. by the end of 2011, Nielsen predicts.

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

A surge in social-media use by small businesses reflects a shift in how they operate and their comfort with increasingly easy-to-use technology.

In growing numbers, small-business owners are adopting social-networking services, location-based services, Twitter and online video to promote products and services, according to a new study by MerchantCircle, a social network for small businesses. It polled a fraction of its more than 1.3 million members.

The survey results are the strongest evidence yet that small businesses — which account for more than 90% of all U.S. companies and fuel the economy — are accelerating their use of social media at the expense of traditional media such as newspapers, the Yellow Pages and radio. Even e-mail messages have taken a beating.

Businesses with fewer than five employees “see Facebook and others as a way to reach targeted consumers” while saving marketing expenditures during a rough economy, says Darren Waddell, vice president of marketing at MerchantCircle.

For the first time, social media has become the most visible way for small businesses to promote their products and services. More than half of nearly 10,000 respondents nationwide say they plan to create or maintain a social-networking presence in the next three months, compared with 41% in the first three months of this year.

That is the highest figure since the survey started a year ago.

At the same time, adoption of location-based services has grown rapidly — 32% of merchants familiar with Foursquare use it, compared with 25% in March. Twitter is gaining favor, too: 8% more merchants intend to use it now than in the first three months of the year. The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business says social technology adoption rates in the U.S. doubled in the past year, to 24% from 12%.

Still, business’ embrace of social media does not necessarily translate into profits, says HipChat, a group chat and messaging service for companies. More than 90% of the 2,000 small businesses it works with use social media, but few have seen a business benefit. A Compete Online Shopper Intelligence study suggests some consumers are slow to accept social media as a shopping resource.

Yet tens of thousands of small businesses advertise on Facebook, up three times from a year ago. More than 1 million small businesses have Facebook profiles reaching hundreds of millions of customers. Many small-business owners used Facebook for personal use before they started their companies, according to Facebook.

“People are familiar and comfortable with Facebook,” says Tim Kendall, director of monetization at Facebook. “Regardless of your business, many of your customers probably are already on Facebook.”

“We’re seeing a (recent surge) in the use of Facebook by local businesses,” Kendall says.

Small-business owners are gravitating to social networks in large part because technology has evolved to the point where anyone — no matter what age or tech background — can turn their personal passion into a thriving online business.

Alice and Donald Murray acquired Over the Moon Ribbons, a maker of discount ribbons, in 2004 after Alice retired. The tech newbies, who have been married for 49 years, initially sold ribbons at flea markets before their daughter Sharyn persuaded them to sell online.

They began using Facebook, Twitter and software from e-commerce company BigCommerce this year. In six months, they’ve grown the business to more than $1,000 a month. The software they use makes it easy to design and run an e-commerce site, with built-in search engine optimization and marketing functionality. The program will soon let small merchants integrate Facebook “Like” buttons and other functions. “The online stuff has a far reach without losing the personal touch,” Alice Murray says. “We do a lot of communication, still, on regular e-mail.”

Online sales at Southern Jewlz have doubled in six months since recent college grad Randa Yezak, 23, started using Twitter and e-commerce software. Her 2-year-old business also has 8,000 fans on Facebook.

“The value of Facebook is that it gives you efficient ways to retain current customers and reach out to and find new customers,” Kendall says. “It is happening on a scalable, digital way among you and your friends.”

By Jon Swartz
USA TODAY