Rejoice fellow Canadians! After years of crying foul and bugging Bing engineers at search engine conferences I can finally say that Canadian business owners can submit their business to Bing Canada for free instead of relying on YellowPages listings; which were an unreliable solution at best. What follows is a little more detail on the subject and a full walkthrough of the submission process and end result. Also, if you wish to see just how much anger and frustration the previous system created please see my article “Bing’s Local Listing Center Lacks Forethought” posted in 2009: yes 4 years ago, so you can count me frustrated (politely put) with them as well.

What Made Bing Get its Sh*t Together?

Sadly it seems we have no need to thank Bing engineers (or my significant prodding) for this advance in Canuck accessibility because it was Nokia who bridged the chasm. Nokia increased its already significant maps partnership with Microsoft to allow their Nokia Maps system to update Bing’s Canadian Local data. This all started, it seems, back in January 2012 but I can’t find any indication this bromance between the two companies included Canadian business submissions that early in the game. Anyway, if you go to Bing and try to submit your business you will now be redirected to Nokia Prime Place where you can  follow their submission and address verification process which I have outlined in detail further along in this post. Read more…

To many business owners blogging is a task they either cannot be bothered with or do not know how to work into their schedules. As an entrepreneur myself I completely understand most concerns about maintaining a blog because I have, at one time, been in the same position. After all, we are already so busy with keeping our clients happy and running our businesses that another task seems impossible to comprehend; never mind a task which many business owners are not convinced will help the bottom line.

All of that said, blogging has a good track record for increasing the bottom line when it is done for the right reasons and with dedication. In the following clip, Gil Namur, President of the popular ezine LifeasaHuman.com explains the motivation you require to be a great blogger:

How to be a Great Blogger from StepForth on Vimeo.

Some Basic Blogging Tips

1. If possible (and it is not always) pick a topic to write about for which you are passionate so your enthusiasm comes across in your writing.
2. Offer something of value and remember the chief goal of your content is to help others – NOT to market to them.
3. Proof read your content and if possible I highly recommend having someone else with a fresh pair of eyes proof read it as well.

How to Find Blog Post Ideas

I find the best story ideas come from seeing popular or trending questions or discussions in my industry. With those angles in mind, here are a few resources and tips for hunting down questions and the latest trending news/topics: Read more…

Many have discounted the benefits of the Meta Description Tag because it is no longer considered by Google’s ranking algorithms when evaluating where your site should rank in search results; it is generally assumed spammers abuse of the tag forced search engines to devalue it. This hasn’t left the Meta Description Tag a complete waste of space though. Before explaining why the Meta Description Tag still has an impact on rankings I will first cover what the tag is still widely known to be good for; prompting clickthroughs.

Fact: The Description Meta Tag Can Increase Clickthroughs

Nowadays if a webmaster writes a good representation of a webpage into the Meta Description Tag there is a good chance Google will use the tag as the description of the page in search engine results. As a result, the wise marketer will take this a step further and ensure the Description Meta Tag is further optimized to entice someone to click on her search result versus her competitor’s. Granted, this is only a big help if the page is actually ranking where viewers can see it; which requires the other facets of website marketing not covered in this article (search engine optimization, community building  which is better than link building, etc.).

Now consider the next important piece of the puzzle Read more…

StumbleUpon is so rarely thought of when it comes to marketing that it seemed perfect to write about the advantages it offers in an article for the Fall Edition of the Search Marketing Standard which is available in print at marketing events around the world or online.

The article is called “Thumbs Up For StumbleUpon’s Marketing Platform”

Here is an excerpt from the article available online or in the latest print magazine:

StumbleUpon  (SU) is my favourite tool for creative inspiration and web discovery but from a marketing perspective the site is not necessarily a good fit for all companies looking to increase targeted traffic to their website. The key to knowing if StumbleUpon is right for you is to intimately know your target market which I have to assume you do for the purposes of this article.

A Short History Lesson & Some Metrics

Founded in Calgary, Canada in 2001, StumbleUpon  is considered a “discovery engine (a form of web search engine) that finds and recommends web content to its users” according to Wikipedia.

Read more…

It has come to our attention there really IS a social media guru out there and the gang at SocialMediaTips.com found him. Check out this startlingly profound video and share if you dare risk losing this edge you will now have on social media tactics!

Key Takeaways

If you need help making the best out of the myriad of social networks and strategies online here are a few thoughts: Read more…

On July 18th, 2012 I received a late phone call at my home from Price’s Alarms informing me the alarm at my office was set off by broken glass… when I arrived at the scene with a police officer we quickly realized this was no false alarm. As it turns out, someone had tried to gain access to our offices by way of the bottom window on our front door.

The thief’s plans, it seems, was to remove all of the wood molding around the glass, pop it out and then grab & dash some of our precious equipment. Fortunately, he was foiled by the industrial strength adhesive used to keep our shatter-proof glass on the door. That said, as you can see in the pictures below he did a great deal of damage to our door and we want him caught – but first we need anyone who may recognize him in the video below to contact the Victoria Police Department: 250-995-7654. Read more…

Today Google announced a dramatic change in the format of search results coming to your browser in a steady roll-out across English results. The change is called Google Search Plus the World which will present users logged in to Google with search results mingled with a myriad of socially derived results from friends on Google Plus.

UPDATED January 13th: this article is being updated regularly 

Haven’t we Seen this For a While Now?

This may sound similar to what you have seen over the past while where certain results had a profile shot of a friend next to them because your friend had recently given it a social nod (liked, +1′d, etc.) but this is far more intense. The new additions are opt-out only and include any of the following content showing in results if it is relevant: images, video, and websites. In addition, these results can also include semi-private and private content such as content shared with you via a limited circle in Google Plus or directly from someone in your network; note that does not mean this is visible to anyone else on Google so don’t get freaked about privacy unless you plan on leaving your browser logged in to your Google profile.

Here is the official (and rather cool) video Google used to demonstrate the functionality all Google users will soon see: Read more…

Today Google’s Engineering Director Scott Huffman released the first of (hopefully many) monthly updates announcing the changes Google has implemented in its algorithms. Here is a run down of what was announced along with my thoughts on each and how they will/may effect the average website:

Related query results refinements:

Sometimes we fetch results for queries that are similar to the actual search you type. This change makes it less likely that these results will rank highly if the original query had a rare word that was dropped in the alternate query. For example, if you are searching for [rare red widgets], you might not be as interested in a page that only mentions “red widgets.”

What this means to you: theoretically this improvement in search quality would minimize unqualified traffic to your website if you happen to be getting some. For example, using the example above if you were selling “red widgets” but not “rare red widgets” (what the person searched for) then the traffic your site may received before this update would have had a high bounce rate or at least a nearly non-existent conversion rate. On the flip side, if you were making sales by selling users on another product while they searched for a competing product then your sales could be negatively impacted by this algorithm update.

More comprehensive indexing:

This change makes more long-tail documents available in our index, so they are more likely to rank for relevant queries.

What this means to you: this is excellent news for websites with Read more…

Today Foursquare  announced their own social button to add to websites and it seems this is one many businesses should pay attention to. Yes, that’s right, another button to add to your site…

What is Foursquare’s new “Save” button for and how does it work?

Foursquare’s new save button is meant for websites of businesses with physical locations (such as shops, restaurants, tourist activities, etc. ) in order to allow online users to add the location to their queue of places to visit next time they are in that geographic area. The idea is quite brilliant and I predict it will have the necessary kick to move Foursquare into bigger leagues sooner than later. This positive outlook for Foursquare is greatly improved from my impression of the service (which I was an early adopter of) over the past while; which has been lackluster at best since Facebook and Google launched similar check-in services. Read more…

The Google we know and love is getting a significant navigation overhaul. Introducing the new Google Toolbar which has Google’s CEO, Larry Page rather excited:

In short, the bulk of the navigation will now appear in a drop-down menu which will appear whenever you hover over the Google logo. The area which once Read more…