I built a new website for Don Horvath who owns the office building where his office and shop is located for Andy’s Electric in Elk River. Don has another business for his property management company which owns and manages the office building. The name of the property management company is, “True Blue Properties, LLC.”

Don only has one office suite available right now so when I was over there last week meeting with him I used my Samsung Android phone to shoot a short video. I edited the video, put it on the new website at www.trueblueproperties.com and today just before lunch I uploaded the video to a new YouTube.com account that I setup for Don.

After lunch I checked my Google Alerts and there it was as the top item, see it here…

So now I’m posting this information and talking about this video with the title of “Office Space For Rent in Elk River, Minnesota” and below you will see the embedded video from YouTube.com. Now I will see how long it takes for Google to index this website and this news posting regarding the video.

When I post YouTube.com videos in blog posts and keyword them correctly I’ve seen the website posting get indexed in Google is as little as 6-8 minutes. I often do this as a demonstration when I speak at workshops. So, let’s see how long this takes today. After I find the indexed information in Google I will update you.

Please watch the short video commercial titled, Office Space For Rent in Elk River, MN.

Click here to view the embedded video.

THE RESULTS ARE IN… PAGE ONE RANKED ON GOOGLE IN UNDER 10 MINS!

I walked away from my computer for maybe 10-12 minutes, came back and searched on the title of this posting and there it was already indexed in Google on Page one. The video is indexed in position #6 and the posting in position #9 both on Page One for this keyworded search term.

Can you see how this would work for your business to get ranked on Page One of Google for a keyword phrase that people are searching on for your product or business?

Want help to make this happen for you? Contact me at: 612-290-1377

Henry Griner,
Your Internet Marketing Technology Consultant

Whatever you call it this is an amazing because Google is giving you the best real estate on their Google search results pages, often Page One! So how can you take advantage of this gift from Google?

Here is how to get started…

• First you must have a Gmail account to be able to claim your free page.
• After claiming your page make sure all your listings are up to date.
• Add lots of high quality photos and videos that cover all the services you offer.
• Be sure to include as much information about your salon or spa as possible.
• Make sure your map pin is in the correct location. (be careful with this one)
• Add a coupon for a special offer or discount.
• Let your customers know that they can post positive reviews for your salon or spa.

Your Google Places page may already show up on page one when someone searches for salons or spas in your city or area. It is very important that when they click on your free Google Places page that they are reading what you want them to read and not the default information that Google brings into the page they create for you.

The more details like photos, videos, positive reviews and your written text which includes the correct keywords for your business… the higher you will rank. You need to know what keywords people are using to search for your services.

One note of caution here. There are a couple dozen features and tools included in Google Places pages that need to be done and done correctly to get the results you want… people phoning for appointments at your salon or spa or walking in the front door. There are a few things that if done incorrectly your page may not show up at all. The worst case is, your site may get de-listed or banned from Google.

Unless a salon or spa owner is really good a “techie” with webmaster skills and has studied Google and Google Places the job of setting up your Google Places page is best left to an expert. For an investment of $150 – $450 Mission Springs can have our team of experts do the work for you. Ranking higher in the Google search results means you will get more clients. One or two new clients can easily cover the cost of doing the job right.

To learn more about Google Places visit Google Places Rush or call Henry Griner at: 612-234-1685

Most people would consider that YellowPages.com is still the leading point of entry for citizens looking for a neighborhood restaurant, bakery, bike shop, or hair salon.  Working hard to attract attention are the biggest online companies, with Yahoo.local, Bing.local, Apple Apps, and of course Google all offering their unique solutions.  As these big fish fight for position, the smaller fries still have a shot at dominating search results.  Yelp, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, HotFrog, and SuperPages are postitioning themselves smartly and hoping for a shot at the next tier.  Meanwhile Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and others are being touted as the next best way we will begin our shopping day.

As an Internet Marketing Technology Consultant who follows these developments I believe that Google Places has the most juice, the clearest path, and the best basics to end up as top gun.  And after 12 months of changes to the product on an almost weekly basis, Places seems poised to make a move to become the leader in the Virtual Land Rush to help business owners build their local businesses.

First, there’s the virtual real estate on the Internet.  If I were a government attorney, I think I could make a case for unfair competition when it comes to the search engine with 80% of search putting its own local search engine (LSE) in color at the top of the page for searches that include businesses in every US city.  But with no such effort coming from the justice department, the other search engine players have no answer to the location, location, location issue.  If Superpages or Yelp can sometimes manage to find themselves first in the organic, this doesn’t come close to the power of their single out or seven-pack Google Places presentation.

If this isn’t demonstrably obvious to anyone, just ask a plumber, locksmith, or carpet cleaner what they want for Christmas.  The answer is clearly a #1 position on Google.  When emergency services companies get that coveted location, their phone rings.  Being #1 in the organic listings is lovely, but not even close to what Places can do for them.

Next, there is the relevancy of the results presented. Sorry to all the rest of the LSE’s.  Your relevancy is third rate in comparison to Places.  Do the lookups yourself.  Try Italian Restaurant Miami or any other local search on YellowPages or Yelp.  You are as likely to find a chiropractor who mentions Italian cooking in his description showing up in the top ten as you are to get Luigi’s Italian Resturant.  Are there odd results in Google Places.  Most assuredly yes, but the results are far superior to any of the others.

Finally there is the quality of the reviews in the results.  Google is 100% hands off, and the result is much more like Amazon.  (Google is still hands off except that you must now be a Google Account holder in order to review but then, many people are.)  So this means that you, the consumer, get to figure out who is spamming, gaming the system, or giving real reviews.  Yelp is the worst in this part of the search and directory business, with their bizarre conclusions regarding who is the reviewer worthy of posting reviews, and who is not. Now that Google is pulling thousands of reviews from other LSE’s, the potential for tons of good information is growing rapidly.

With these recent changes instituted by Google Places this is going to generally improve the listings for the businesses and improve the experience of the information searcher. Anyone owning a local business needs to understand that claiming their Google Places page is critical to their business future. Google Places is not just another place to advertise. If a business wants to stay in business in 2011 and beyond, they need to use Google to let others know who and where they are.

For more information about how to use Google Places in your business and to claim your FREE Places page visit www.gprush.com

Are you ready to claim your FREE website from Google?

Watch this short video and if you want help to get your business listed just ask me. Use my Contact form here or call me at 612-234-1685

Click here to view the embedded video.

In late 2010 I decided that my brain had had enough being picked on… LOL. Just kidding.

After talking with several friends and business associates I have decided to make some changes for 2011. The regular Wednesday night meetings at the coffee shop are going to be replaced by larger meetings held bi-monthly with topics more focused on the online needs of small to medium business owners in the area.

Also, I plan to set aside time each week to meet one-one with local business owners to learn about their business needs and to see how I can use my online marketing technology skills to help them build their businesses.

If you want to learn more about my plans for local meetings, have ideas for topics for them or, if you would like to schedule a one-one meeting with me please use my Contact Form.

The new year of 2011 is going to be an exciting year for our community. I look forward to helping my friends and neighbors who own and operate businesses in the Greater Elk River Area build a stronger base of commerce here.

If someone clicks the email link on your website will they get a reply within 24-48 hours?

Do you know where your website visitors are coming from, how they find you online?

If someone wrote something about you or your business and posted it online would you know about it?

Do you think there is NO WAY you would ever have time to manage accounts for your business using Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?

Do you think you would need to become a “Super Geek” to put video on your business website?

If these are some of the questions that you have pondered or said yes to as you read them you may be a candidate for the Elk River Online Business Mastermind Group. We meet the second Wednesday of each month to share ideas, questions, frustrations, tips and tricks that real business folks like you need help with to build your online face of your business.

There is no cost to join us for the two hours (unless you want to buy me a coffee or a blueberry muffin) each month at Caribou Coffee in Elk River, Minnesota. My purpose is to share ideas among each other for what works and what does not work in the online world. As a Mastermind group we can help each other. Even with 16 plus years of working with computers, computer networks and building websites I don’t have all the answers… but together we can help each other.

Come on out and join us on the evening of June 9th for a hot cup of coffee or any other favorite drink.

The monthly Elk River Online Business Mastermind Group meets from 7:00 – 9:00pm at the Caribou Coffee shop next to Office Max in Elk River off Hwy. 169… just down the road from Cub Foods.

Bring a friend or business partner along. Forward the link to this page to them.

Be sure to leave a comment about coming to the meeting to let me know if you can make it or not.

For those business people who want to learn how to do this themselves a great video camera to get is the new Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video HD Camera. I have a link to it over there —>>> on the right if you want to check it out. Besides giving super HD quality video and being easy to download to your PC or Mac computer, the Zi8 has a 1/8 microphone jack and comes with a replaceable rechargeable battery.

Here are some of the specs on the Zi8 camera. You can click on the link on the right to learn more about it and to order one also. [Full disclosure, that is my affiliate link from Amazon]

The KODAK Zi8 Pocket Video Camera captures every experience in stunning 1080p HD video. Stay in focus while you’re on the move with integrated image stabilization.

• Capture HD quality 1080p video with 16:9 aspect ratio
• Plenty of room for more—record up to 10 hours of HD video with the expandable SD/SDHC card slot that can hold up to 32 GB[1]
• Make audio awesome—the external microphone jack lets you record in stereo
• Get a new perspective—take amazing 5 MP 16:9 widescreen HD still pictures

I can teach you how to create and edit videos for your business website or, I also offer services for creation and marketing for you. For more information about to use video to promote your business Contact Me.

Do you promote your business or products using Television commercials? If you answered no to that question I would suspect the reason you do not use TV ads in your promotion toolbox is cost. High production costs for doing video and the expense of running ads on TV stop many businesses who would probably benefit from doing advertising on television.

If your advertising budget does not allow for local or national television ads you should be looking at a new and better way to promote your business or product using the Internet and streaming video either live or pre-recorded.

Look at this…

The Nielsen Company reported yesterday that total video streams for November 2009 were up 17 percent year-over-year in the U.S.

There were 138.4 million unique viewers of online video that month. They watched 11.2 billion video streams, or about 81 streams per viewer. Viewers spent 200 minutes per viewer — on average — watching online video.

Not surprisingly, YouTube was the top online brand ranked by video streams for November 2009 in the U.S. 106.9 million unique visitors watched 6.8 billion streams on YouTube that month. Hulu ranked second, with 12.5 million unique visitors, who watched 656.6 million streams. That’s not a typo. YouTube dominates the category by that much.

If you were saying to yourself that no one would watch your online video commercial, you might want to re-think that. And if you think there may be something to the idea, come on out to my monthly Elk River Online Business Mastermind Group meeting this month.

I will be talking about how you can create and market video over the Internet to get business leads and sell products or services.

Come on out this Wednesday evening March 10th and join us for a  hot cup of coffee or any other favorite drink.

The monthly Elk River Online Business Mastermind Group meets from 7:00 – 9:00pm at the Caribou Coffee shop next to Office Max in Elk River off Hwy. 169… just down the road from Cub Foods.

Bring a friend or business partner along. Forward the link to this page to them.

Be sure to leave a comment below about coming to the meeting.

How do I pick keywords for my website that people are searching for?

How can I get more visitors to my website?

What tool can I use that will quickly drive traffic to my website?

This month I want to share with you some tips and ideas that can help answer these questions and others related to how important it is to identify what people are searching for on the Internet and how to make your website stand out in front of them for those search terms.

I will also be showing you how to properly link up keywords on your website pages and blog posts so that your pages get found and indexed by the search engines like Google.

Come on out this Wednesday evening February 10th and join us for a  hot cup of coffee or any other favorite drink.

The monthly Elk River Online Business Mastermind Group meets from 7:00 – 9:00pm at the Caribou Coffee shop next to Office Max in Elk River off Hwy. 169… just down the road from Cub Foods.

Bring a friend or business partner along. Forward the link to this page to them.

Be sure to leave a comment below about coming to the meeting.

I have some cool new stuff to show you about using Social Media Marketing tools like videos and Google Voice. Watch as we make an Amimoto video like the one below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Be ready to give me a video testimonial for my new Mission Springs WordPress Web Hosting site.

Bring your questions about Facebook, Twitter, Yourtube videos and all so that we can all share about our experiences good or bad with using Social Marketing tools.

We meet from 7:00 – 9:00pm at the Caribou Coffee shop next to Office Max in Elk River off Hwy. 169… just down the road from Cub Foods.

Bring a friend or business partner along. Forward the link to this page to them.

Be sure to leave a comment below about coming to the meeting.