Just testing some various SEO techniques.  Will post my results.

;P

Michael Roberts

Sure we all might not have the SEO know how as someone like Matt Cutts but did you know you can start making a nice income right now with what you do know?

I am sure you are all aware on how Google and other Search Engines have been shifting their focus to “Local” results. But, us as internet marketers, don’t have a local business…so how can we use this to our advantage? Well local businesses are clueless when it comes to optimization, getting content indexed, installing a blog, etc.

When I was 19-21 I owned a janitorial company that had 13 employee’s working for me full time. We had several company vehicles, equipment, etc. Sounds like a decent size company right? Surely bigger than your standard chiropractic office or small restaurant. However, even with my resources and company size I was still clueless about how to even begin to build my business online. I was strapped for time working in my business, didn’t have time to learn to do this stuff myself and there were so many “So Called” SEO companies out there who wouldn’t work with me…All they wanted to do was pressure me into signing a contract for thousands of dollars.
I would have killed to have someone cut through all that tape and help me build my business online!

You think my scenario was unique? Of course NOT! In 2008 there were over 29million small business in the USA alone. Talk about a big market! I will take a bet that all of you who are reading my blog have never targeted a keyword that big.

So there is a huge market for local businesses needing SEO and Web services and now that Google is moving things locally…it’s like Google is literally putting a golden nugget right on our lap. All we have to do is take action!

Some of you reading this still may be skeptical or hesitant. I can already here a few of you saying, “Michael that’s great and all but I just don’t know enough to take action. I am no where near Matt Cutts. How can I do this?” The truth is..sure there are people out there who know more than you about SEO and there are also tons of people out there who know more than me. But that is irrelevant. The services these small local business need don’t require some huge GURU’s knowledge. Think of it this way….These local businesses don’t want to hire Leonardo De Vince to paint a wall red! That’s overkill and ridiculous. But if these business approached someone like Leonardo De Vince to paint their wall red….all the artist would do is talk to them about how he could make this wall a piece of art. Something magnificent, something that would be remembered forever…..which all sounds good…but that artist would also be asking a fee that is likely more than the business is worth, let alone Leonardo De Vince would be using terms and techniques that would just confuse and frustrate the business owner.

I hope you are understanding the power and opportunity that is now sitting in front of us! However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There still are several hurdles you will need to overcome. I developed some techniques nearly a year ago to refine this process for myself, but then when I met Caro she showed me that she had so refined this process it works like a highly oiled machine!

Caro and her business partner are both very successful in the online marketing world. When they got together they teamed up to build OHM (Offline Hero’s Method) to make this process highly refined. I was blown away by how much attention to detail and how much hard work they have done.

I find So Called GURU’s all over the internet who try to sell stuff that they actually have no knowledge about. It’s very frustrating to know who to trust. With Caro, she already has a successful consulting business and she is already making this work! So you may ask then why is she willing to sell this secret? (Remember that number I told you about earlier? 29+million businesses in the USA alone a few years back. Who could possibly corner the entire world market of local businesses? It would be silly for her not to share and sell her techniques.)

Their mission is to assist other Internet Marketers, who may not have yet made the money they want online, and are looking for new opportunities to build a credible, sustainable and profitable consulting business, as they have. They have created a Training Center which is jam packed full of information on how to:

Identify the ideal Local Business Client
How to Obtain The Local Business Client
How to Retain that Local Business Client

The biggest mistake Internet Marketers make when approaching Local Business Clients is that they list their Services and expect the Business Owner to be impressed. Feeling quite disappointed when they are not. OHM focuses on teaching it’s Offline Consultants about providing VALUE for their Client, which is a HUGE shift in focus to what most have thought was the way to approach a prospect. The key is to know how to pick what is valuable for a prospective client, and how to get their attention so that they will listen to what you can do for them. All of which can be found in OHM’s Training center

There’s no magic pill. It is about taking action. And it’s about knowing the, Right‚ way to do it. All of the materials offered in OHM are exactly what Caro and her business partner use for their Offline Consulting businesses. So there is no need to guess what works. Or go through the painful trial and error process. It’s proven as they’re doing it!

Consulting to Offline Clients is a real opportunity. Yes it is, the next big thing,- and it is still at it’s early stages, which means there is plenty of Local Business Clients needing online marketing assistance. All you need to know is how to approach and win them!

Michael Roberts

Now this is no ordinary sign holder! The story could have easily ended here as we have all seen sign holders on a common occurrence. In fact we see them so often that we almost train our eye’s to ignore them. Yet this sign holder was more extraordinary. The woman has shorter blond hair and is well advanced in her years. She holds a big guitar shaped sign with an even bigger smile on her face. Atop that fluffy blond hair is a set of big headphones, a pair you might see right out of the 90′s, and a long cord plugging into what looks to be an old cassette or CD player.

I can only guess as to what she is listening to, perhaps some Pink Floyd or Jimmy Hendrix, but one thing is for certain…it makes her wanna boogie! She is rockin out with that sign like she is performing on stage. Her dance moves rival that of moves seen in Flash Dance. Watching her for those brief minutes put a smile on both my wife’s and my face.

From time to time when we arrive at the “punishment light” now we look for her. In fact we no longer dread this busy road but look forward to seeing if she will be dancing. Honking as we go by her and seeing her wave back.

A month later my wife was curious about her and actually found that she had her OWN Facebook fan page! I was astonished and to make my surprise even bigger she had over 1,700 Facebook likes! 1,700!? Now my town of Bend’s total population is roughly 70,000 people. So in a few short months she was able to generate 2.5% of the entire city to follow her on Facebook. (Talk about power)

Her Facebook page is quite active as she has taken a cold business front and has made people become friends with her. People stop to get pictures with her so they can upload it to her profile, people have made CD’s for her and my favorite quote on the page is, “My husband and I just tried Little Caesars for the first time because of YOU!”

So if you have ever been skeptical if connecting with your customers on a more personal level can really help your local business please take a lesson in life from the Bend sign lady. She has made 2.5% of the city fall in love with not just her but with the company she promotes.

If you already have a website then I encourage you to immediatley figure out how to connect it to your Facebook profile or Fan Page!
If this sounds hard don’t fear….I have shot a Youtube Video for you on How to Integrate Facebook’s Features into your website.

Keep on rockin on sign lady….keep on rockin on!
Her facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BendLittleCaesarsLady

Though I am about 95% sure Caffein didn’t get renamed by google to Kaffein I can’t verify this quite yet. However, it is no joke that this update is quite possibly live everywhere which will change some SEO factors. I will keep you posted on my findings! Dang Google for making this time of year so difficult! ;)

Hope you enjoy the vid!

Wolfram Alpha: http://www.wolframalpha.com/

(This search engine thingy for my iphone is pretty dang cool. You can use it more like a reference or quick information guide for searches. If there is a specific piece of information you need this tool will be faster than loading safari an doing a search on Google. Also it’s affordable now since it dropped from like $49 to $2. If you already purchased this along time ago for the full price ask for a refund to the cheaper price as they are honoring that!)

Apple builds their own search engine in the next 5 years?: http://www.businessinsider.com/70-chance-apple-builds-its-own-search-engine-in-the-next-five-years-2010-3

See my new training video of the new YouTube layout:

FourSquare set to hit 1 million users! Check it out: http://foursquare.com/

***************************
LIST OF APRIL FOOLS JOKES

Google Docs let’s you upload anything, really, anything you want, including your sofa
Google AJAX let’s you define evil API requests from legit ones with the &evil=true parameter
Google Maps Australia does Australian speaking directions
Google Maps does 3D street views. Go to the maps, and go down to a street level and you will be able to see the man with 3D glasses.
Google AdSense adds wingdings font to the ads
YouTube lets you watch videos in text only mode.
Google building a nuclear project according to TechCrunch
Google Books go 3D
Google gets into building jails for municipalities
Google launches Google Translate for Animals
Google voice does standard voicemail capabilities
Google’s search results summary bar shows results in something else then seconds (try it with any Google search)
Google launched Google Romance
Google Reader’s ReaderAdvantage miles program
Picasa’s life size image view
Google Chrome extension to unmute the web
Gmail vowel outage

*******************************************

On April 1st Google honored Topeka Kansas and changed their name to Topeka for a day. During Google’s “Super Fast Internet” contest Topeka Kansas tried to get the attention of Google and renamed their city for an entire month to Google Kansas. This really got the attention of Google and on April 1st 2010 Google returned the favor and officially renamed them selves to Topkea for a day!

Topeka Kansas now Google Kansas

Topeka Google

Doing something crazy like this can really get the attention of those big fish that you want to attract. If you are in a position with a really good product but are finding your self lacking any connections do something BIG to stand out among the crowd! I am not huge fish in the midst of all the big corporations out there but even I get people coming to me day in and day out wanting to sell me something, get me to sell something or help them! I try my best to sort through the rift and help all I can but it is difficult. Doing something large can really help you stand out and get a guru’s attention or potential business partner.

Below is a wallpaper I designed back in 2008. Sure I had to spend time designing it and then spend a few hundred bucks to have a nice artist put it all together…but the end result was me throwing that in every forum I could find and eventually one of the guru’s in the picture contacted me. It formed a relationship that took my career to new heights. Doing something like this can help you stand out in your niche, but not only that it let’s the guru’s know you mean business and that you have the income and persistence to be serious and are quite possibly worth listening too! ;)

Funny Wallpaper of the 30dc crew

Catch you next week with the next internet news video!

Be sure to subscribe to this blogs RSS feed and connect with me on Facebook and Twitter!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MichaelRobertsSEO

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MichaelRRoberts

Keep posted though as I am working on some pretty cool stuff I want to share with you guys in the next few weeks!

-3D movies I talked about were Captian Eo produced by Epcot and Michael Jackson and Alice in Wonderland which just came out in 3D and is in theaters at the date of this post.

-For more information about Google’s competition they held for fast internet visit Google’s Competition.

- To see South Carolina’s YouTube vid they did to attract google you can see it here: Google & South Carolina

- **Recommended** Check out Google Apps new channel. They put up a new YouTube channel and I think it is a worthy subscribe so you can easily stay on top of new apps. Google YouTube App Channel

- I imagine this site will eventually dissppear, but for now I will provide the link anyway so you can check Google’s status in China. Google’s Services Offered In China

I will be producing some new training and tips videos in the next few days. Right now is a super busy schedule as I am working on something secret! Shhh! I will alert you guys soon as I can about this.

Michael Roberts

Link Resources:
Yelp Being Sued

Viacom V.S. YouTube

Founders of YouTube sold out at the right time?
You Tube Founders

Google News

Google Leaving China?

Google Maps being tested in Australia

What I didn’t cover in the video:

One of the founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes, who left Facebook to help campaign for the presidency of Barrack Obama has now moved
onto a new venture. He is creating a charity site called JUMO which will help charities use the internet for networking and reaching more donations.

I am putting together this lawsuit document of best practices so you can easily follow along to be on the safe side! It’s never a bad idea to protect your assets! However, this lawyer is expensive and slow. I can get him to be faster but that just equals more expensive and a little faster. So this document will be up in probably 10-15 days.

Subscribe to my blog or YouTube channel to be sure to catch this when it is released!
( MIKE ROBERTS YOUTUBE CHANNEL )
Thanks,

Michael Roberts

ok this one has nothing to do with SEO , IM or anything I normally talk about, but hey it’s the weekend and this video was truly amazing!   This guy really is quite an artist….If you don’t like this video then you have the right to chuck a snow ball at me!  :P

ENJOY!

Oscars Over the Internet

With the feud between cable vision and ABC/Disney nearly 3.1 million people had trouble watching the Oscars. While these companies struggle to provide reliable source of TV the internet continues to make strides forward into providing TV/Movies streaming over the internet. Below is a list of a few of the places I found you could have watched the Oscars live on the internet!

1. Livestream
2. AP Livestream
3. Oscar.com
4. UStream TV
5. Webcastr
6. TV.com
7. TVGuide
8. YouTube /Oscars Channel
9. APLive Facebook page
10. Associated Press Channel
11. ATDHE

(Note I did not name all the places that carried the Oscars Live for free nor did I check all these resources to verify they actually wound up carrying the Oscars. Yes, I will admit it I don’t watch the Oscars myself :P)

Google Maps V.S. Bing Maps

Bing has seen a small decrese in it’s numbers of search shares while Google has recently seen a spike. However, Bing shows no signs of slowing down in their progress on developing a solid search engine. Just recently they have released the largest update to their maps to date. While using Bing I noticed I had an easier time locating my house than when I used Google Maps however their over all quality in my area was a bit worse. Here are the comparisons for my house.

Google Map of my house:

Bing Map of my house: (Note the circle fence in the bottom left corner is nearly missing and in the top right hand corner the truck and blue tarp are just a blur.)

Google Expands

Just recently Google has acquired two new online business. Picnik and Doc Verse. Both are awesome little services and you can check them out at the links below.

Picnik – This service allows you to edit your photos right form your web browser.

DocVerse – Real time sharing and group editing of Word, Excel and Power Point files.

YouTube News

YouTube has changed the default size for embedded videos. By default they’re getting bigger at either 480×385 for a 4:3 video, or 640×385 for a 16:9 video. YouTube says it went with these sizes, because they will give most viewers the best viewing experience because they better match current video encoding sizes.

Also as promised here are the secret photos of YouTube’s new UI they are testing in random people’s accounts. Also, notice how there aren’t multiple stars anymore…It’s sheerly Like or Don’t Like.

WIERD! Look at that share picture of YouTube’s new UI. I am really surprised they have not already included Google Buzz into the new UI’s share feature!?

Question of the Day

Do you think it’s a good idea or a dumb idea to have a computer at a treadmill?
Tell me your thoughts!

-More pictures of treadmill desks at Stumble Upon

-And in case you wanted to build your own here is a site to help you! :P http://buildatreadmilldesk.com/

Lastly, I will be shooting a screenflow video shortly with tips on how you can increase your page load speed!

Thanks for watching and reading!

Michael R Roberts

I have compiled a large list for you guys that you need to have uploaded onto your Word Press site! Just watch the video and follow the instructions and paste the following list into your WP options.

Please do remember to rate the video and subscribe to my channel! :)

Also don’t forget to set this up any time you create a new blog.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
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http://xping.pubsub.com/ping