I have on many occasions stressed here how important it is for Home Stagers and frankly any locally based business to learn how to get on Google Maps.

It’s actually easy, if you know what you are doing.

I am pleased to announce that my newest eBook, How to Get On Google Maps has been accepted for sale as a Kindle eBook by Amazon.

I am thrilled to have Amazon as a marketing partner. In addition to my work being available there for use by Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android devices, PC, and Mac users.

In addition you can buy and download a pdf copy directly from How to Get On Google Maps.

Product Description
Every Business Needs New Customers.

This Kindle book describes the easiest and most effective way to get new customers for main street businesses serving a local area or region. The tools and insights provided are applicable to single establishments and chains with multiple locations.

In this book you will learn how to get your business “Found” by prospective customers by ranking high on the Google Places Pages, which are today’s answer to the now obsolete yellow pages of the last century.

Not only will you learn how to claim and set up your Google Places pages properly, you will gain insights into some of the best online marketing tactics of the day.

You will learn how to do effective keyword search using free tools. Tools that will not only allow you to better understand your own customer demands, but also to spy on your competitors and discover their secrets.

You will understand the three main ways to get of top of the search results on Google.

The specific step by step instructions to make sure your Google Places Information is complete, and what is important and what isn’t so that you show up on the favored 7 pack that Google Displays on its Map.

You will discover why you need to and how to create videos and learn about a free service you can use to create animated videos with special effects that will wow your viewers.

You will discover which other directories in addition to Google Places you want to get listed in, including Bing and Yahoo and nine others.

You will also learn of an inexpensive short cut you can take to minimize the time and effort required to complete these listings and gain valuable “citation” support for your listing.

As importantly, you will learn what not to buy.

You will also learn about a free Google service you can use to monitor your own reputation and to keep an eye on your competitors so you know what they are up to.

And finally, you will get a quick glimpse at the significant change that will render many of your competitors web pages obsolete. This same change will work to your advantage when you apply the lessons of this powerful “how to” book.

Technorati Tags: how to get on google maps, google places page, how to get found online, home staging, mareting home staging businesses, How to attract customers

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: google places page, Home Staging, How to attract customers, how to get found online, how to get on google maps, mareting home staging businesses

My reference to a Yellow Pages display ad is a bit misleading.  I admit that, but the truth is that you can now get something as valuable for free.  Better in fact.

I’ve written and posted a series of YouTube videos on the topic already, but it’s surprising how few people pick up on this exceptional opportunity to gain a near term market advantage by taking action.

Below is my most recent YouTube effort.

Home staging professionals who take the time to get their Google Places Page set up properly will get better exposure than those who do nothing or merely claim their page and let it sit partially completed. Those who go the extra mile and get set up properly with citations will do even better. And please note: You DO NOT need a web site to make this work for you.

Google wants to be the new Yellow pages and if they had their way, each of you would fully fill out you Google places pages with ten photos and five videos, plus all the other relevant information.

To encourage you to do that, they give those who do preferential exposure, ie. a higher listing than those who do not. So now you see why it makes sense to be sure to do a complete job.

Google is also used to scam artists manipulating their systems to get advantage, so they have included in their ranking scheme a thing called citations. These are a little more difficult to scam because Google searches the web as only they can to find verification of your business wherever it may exist on other data bases.

For example they actually prefer to see that you have a Bing and Yahoo places listing, as well as any others they can find.

One of the things I do for my clients is set them up with over 140 such listings. One side benefit from my process is that we often find errors, old addresses, old phone numbers, email addresses and other inconsistent information on some of the listings. With our service we get these corrected so that all your listings are uniform. This citation service is important, and will be more important in 6months to 2 years when all your competitors figure out how to fill out their Google Places listing. Most will never get the word that they also need to do this extra step. Which is why my clients will tend to get higher listings then they will.

If you would like more information on my services to help you to properly set up you Google Places Pages email me at enetwal@gmail.com or leave a comment to this posting.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google places pages, Google places, Google map, Yellow pages, citations, home staging, home stagers,

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: citations, Google, Google map, Google places, Google places pages, home stagers, Home Staging, Yellow pages

When I first decided to get going in earnest with internet marketing, I chose to get involved with the Home Staging niche.  I thought I had found a ripe territory where my skills, and expertise would be well received.

As time went on, it became clear to me that while I had a lot to offer, most home stagers weren’t particularly interested.

Now as my initial survey results showed, many home stagers wanted to have more people come to their web sites.  Many also wanted more of those people who did come, to do something.  The want was there. The need was there. But while I had information and “how to” directions I could share that would address both of those needs, for the most part home stagers were not all interested in learning how to manage their own web pages.

I can understand that.  They were too busy with their lives on top of their new business to spend a lot of time learning web site technology.

It’s the problem of being a very small micro business. “If it’s to be done, it’s up to me,” is the owner’s primary reality. And time and inclination run short for most of us.

I know that many home stagers would benefit greatly if only they could afford the time and attention to getting their web sites optimized for the search engines.  I know they would get a lot more customers, if they would offer an ethical bribe as I call it, and follow-up with prospects that opted into their lists. These tactics work in hundreds of other industries and there is no reason why they cannot do the same in home staging.

I also know that once you have your web page optimized for on page factors, it’s just a matter of getting more and better backlinks than your competitors to fight you way to the top of the search engine rankings.  And I can show anyone how to do that, and even in many cases do it for them. And most importantly, I know that getting to that first place ranking is worth the fight.

42% of search engine visitors will click on that top organic listing on Google and the next best place only gets 27%. Most spots on the first page get only 2-5%.  Now 2-5% isn’t bad when you consider the 0% most people on page 2-22 and beyond get.

That’s why I thought my recent ebook on getting listed in the Google 7 pack would be a hit.  Google has been expanding its role in local search over the past few years.  When you search for most small businesses online in your local community, the odds are that the Google Search engine  results will show a local map with dots and flags for the top 7 businesses Google picks for the area.

These appear on page one, and because of the map, they attract a lot of eyes. What surprised me was that when I searched for home stagers and added a city name, I found many places where the full seven possible spots on the Google Places maps were empty, including my hometown of Minneapolis.

So why should I be teaching people how to do organic search, when they can with just a little effort of an hour or so, get themselves on the first page?

As I show in my report called “Getting on the Map” it’s important to fill in your Google Places Listing as completely as possible, but that said. If no one else in your market has bothered, all you need to do is to claim your listing and do at least a half way decent job of filling in the form. You can always go back and edit it in the future.

If your market already has 7 businesses listed, you will need to do a bit more work as I discuss in the report.  You need to get citations and reviews and probably should make sure your Listing Profile is complete, but these are relatively easy tasks. Particularly when the reward is a first page presence on Google.

Click on Image to Get Your Copy Now!

This report is easy to follow and to apply. It walks you step by step through the process of claiming your Google Places Listing. It’s my most user friendly work to date.

Technorati Tags: Google places, google 7 pack, first page google, Getting on the map,

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: first page google, Getting on the map, Google 7 pack, Google places

There are now three ways for a local business to get high visibility on Google Searches. You can buy pay per click advertising. You can get highly ranked for organic search. And you can get listed in Google Places, formerly Google Map.

For many home stagers in many markets there is a quick ans easy way to get listed on the front page of Google. And that is via the Google Places Map.

In a quick check of several cities I found few Home Staging firms who have taken advantage of this.  If that’s true in your market, rush on in and get it done. It could mean some extra business for you in the very near future.

Home Stagers Minneapolis

I have just completed a short report that discusses how to get listed in Google Places. Now some businesses have been automatically included by Google, which is good…but you need to claim that listing as the owner of the company, and then finish filling out the listing form.

If you are not listed on Google Places, you want to be. All it takes is filling out a form. In my report I identify some tips you want to take into account when you fill it out.

Google wants these to be fully filled out, it helps build their data base after all. The more complete the listing form, the more likely your business will get selected to be one of the 7 businesses highlighted in the “7 Pack”

The Google Places listing trumps many businesses who managed to get to the first page of Google using SEO techniques. Usually the top two organic search results still appear above the “Map,” so organic search still is well worth fighting for, but there is a new element to the equation.

Once you have filled in their form, there are a number of things you can do to improve your chances of getting listed in the 7 pack. I discuss these in the report.

Now I can’t guarantee you will make it to the top 7, but I do guarantee my report. It’s only $9.97 and if you don’t like it for any reason, I offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

http://MinneapolisInternetMarketingConsultant.com/reports/7pack.html

Technorati Tags: Google paces, Google map, Google 7 pack, Google listing, How to rank on Google

Setting up a web page is only the beginning to online marketing. Now you need to get it seen by potential customers. This used to be challenging in many markets, but there has been a big change in what matters. Today, what matters is being seen on the Google Places Page, and you don't even need to have a web site to do that. (although you should.) The good news is that its free, and if you know what you are doing, you can maneuver yourself to the top listing in many markets. That's one of the skill sets I bring to the table. If you would like to get your Google Places Page properly set up send me an email at enetwal@gmail.com and put "Free Initial Evaluation" or something similar in the subject line. Be sure to include your current web site and contact info.

Technorati Tags: Google 7 pack, Google listing, Google map, Google paces, How to rank on Google