Small Businesses often fall prey to scammy SEO companies and people who are essentially hiding under a black hat when it comes to the way they offer SEO services for small business. In the last couple of years Google has cracked down on these black hat tactics like keywords stuffing, and will block your site if it looks like your SEO strategies are even in a grey area. It is important to note that Goggle doesn’t care if you hire someone and they do the black hat SEO strategies, you and your business will still be held responsible. Not to mention you will see your customers and sales drop drastically because you will likely be pushed well past the first page of search results.

Just about every day at HaBO we post a blog about internet marketing, how to create the best landing pages, what makes a good website or how to keyword your online content. This week, in the spirit of this great Thanksgiving Holiday, I want to turn the spotlight a bit inward, and tell you a few things I am grateful for here at the Bubble.

We recently helped consult and advise one of our clients through the renaming process: the Biggs-Gridley Memorial Hospital which is now Orchard Hospital, changed its name after 64 years of operation.

Every small business wants its website to be on the front page of Google.  Don’t you? 

The challenge is that the world of SEO (search engine optimization) has been changing a lot over the last two years and most of those changes are not even known by the general population. This means that as a business owner you need to beware of SEO services for small business and big business alike.  What you don’t know can really hurt you.

If you want to rank well in Google, and by that I mean you show up near the front page of Google, you need to understand at least 3 things when evaluating a company you want to work with for SEO services.

Yes, social media has its place not only in your internet marketing, but in your big picture marketing strategy (brand messaging) as well!

If you are a small business or a local non-profit, promoting your brand, your small business services, or a local event is definitely where social media can help amplify your efforts and turn up the volume.

Here are 8 key elements that are important to include in your small business social media strategy:

There is no one right strategy for marketing online.  Common sense will tell you that, even if you don’t know anything about the internet. But - and here it is - there are only a few small differences between most of the successful internet marketing strategies.  If you want to take advantage of the power and the cost effectiveness of internet marketing then you need a great strategy, and unless you’re one of the experts arguing over the little things then I will say this to you:

So many people out there are looking for the quick, cheap and easy fix. Most small business owners understand that in their industry the quick, cheap fix doesn’t always end up as the easy fix. It usually means going back and doing the job again, purchasing better quality or even in the long run, losing business. In essence, the job takes longer, costs more money and is harder on everyone.

Here’s the big question many small business owners are asking, why is social media important to their internet marketing strategy? Most people think that social media is a place where all the crazy teenagers post party pictures, tell people their problems or gossip about ex-boyfriends for attention. Yes, this is true, but have you thought about what social media could do for you as an adult businessman or woman? Have you thought about how many of your customers are on social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn? Have you decided that since you’re not techie enough that you’re going to stay out of the online social sphere?

It seems that October is a little more frightful than expected, as most of you may have heard Google has made a major algorithm update called, “The Hummingbird Upate.” However Google didn’t stop there. It has also admitted to blocking 100% of search query data in Google Analytics, meaning you will no longer see exactly what keywords brought visitors to your site. What does this all mean for your website and general SEO services for small business? For small businesses paying for SEO services there is no need to worry, as long as your SEO agency is performing services with Google’s advice in mind:

If you're reading this then you are probably wondering what did Google do again. 

Well it took away a major piece of reporting from all of us in regards to how you evaluate your company's effectiveness in the Google Search. You and I can no longer see what keywords people are coming to our site from. Whether you are a small business or large one or somewhere in between this impacts you. If you are monitoring these things on your company website then you rely on this data to make informed decisions and adjust your SEO strategy.  If you aren't monitoring these things then you need to. Google is the most important source of traffic in any succesful online strategy for any size business.