(If somehow you found this page without “subscribing” to my weekly Notes, congratulations! You’re a sleuth, indeed!)

I can tell you that once you start getting them (as they arrive on Fridays), you’re going to be excited to get the next one. I’m confident of that because I don’t put together notes on subjects that didn’t really hold anyone’s interest. And often times I’m given some great ideas, which I research a bit more, and put into the notes.

So check your e-mail sometime between 9 and noon on Fridays – and get ready to take action. But to start you off on the right foot, here are my notes from a recent discussion with a woman who wanted to know how to come up with content AND how to optimize it for the search engines.

And this one is a video:

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So what is Google Local? To start with Google Local is now called Google Places (I think. I see both in different places). Anyway, Google is a search engine who’s trying to provide relevant results for your search question. If you live in New York and you type “residential plumber”, Google believes that providing the relevant, local results would likely be what you’re truly looking for.

Go directly to Google. Do not collect $200

So, on searches where Google Local is activated, a map shows up on the first half the page with stars showing you the locations of the local businesses that you might be looking for. Look up “auto body repair Hudson MA” and you’ll get a list of auto body shops nearby.

So, how do you make sure your business shows up on this map and in these listings? First and foremost you have to go to http://google.com/local and register your company. That’s the very first thing. (Wait, don’t leave yet – it’s the very first thing after finishing this article).

The second part is optimizing what you tell Google.  There are 23 different things you can tell them. Ideally, if you give them all the information and the form is 100% complete – you’re optimized. So here’s a quick breakdown of the 23 things and their importance:

That’s the important one to do on its own because of the search traffic it brings in. But you should also go to the other local directories and fill out their “information cards”.  Specifically, you want to hit Wcities, Infousa, Yelp,Localeze, Placelocal and Merchant Circle.  (Then make sure to “bookmark” each of these listings once you are done with a service like Ping.fm or Onlywire)

Get out of jail, and go to your website

Don’t stop there. A place on the map with a little link to your website is great – but that’s not going to push up your retirement. So head back to your website and make sure your full address, phone number and company name are clearly visible on your site – and not just the front page.  Your best off to put it in the footer.

Now if you’re truly adept at code and your website, make sure to place the Google Webmaster Tools verification code and Analytics code on your website as well. This is one of the few, free ways you’re going to see exactly which keywords are bringing people to your site. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that St. Paul Plumber is actually paying your bills; whereas, people looking for Minneapolis plumber are just exiting your page without contacting you.

Finally, we get to the railroads

Connections. That’s what railroads do. They connect cities – but only the important ones. Imagine if the train from Memphis to Milwaukee stopped in Tuscola, IL but not Chicago.  What would that make you think about Tuscola? To some degree that’s how Google feels about websites. If nothing is linking to your site, if there are no connections – how important and valuable could your page really be?

Since none of your local competitors are doing it, work on link building. Ask vendors to put a link on their site, customers to praise you in their blogs with links, and friends to tweet about your site.  To keep this post under 600 words (whew!), I’ll leave it there. But if you want to know more about how to do this. . . ask me right here what it is you need to know to get your site going.

A double listing is the culmination of two pages on your website ranking well for the same keyword. They don’t have to rank 1 and 2 for the keyword, but they do need to rank on the same page.  When they do appear on the same page of the search results, Google uses the indented listing to show they’re from the same site. It’s really just an efficiency thing for Google.

So, how do you go about getting a double listing? As far as difficulty goes, it should be as difficult as it was to get your first page ranked for that keyword.  And then just a smidge harder.

If you want a formula, start with the title tag and description tag. For the page of your site that currently ranks on the first page of Google, how often does your keyword occur in both of these, and what percent of the total tag is your keyword?  Figure that out, then write a title tag and description tag for a second page that matches the number and density.

The key here is to use the same keyword, but write a different title and description.

The next phase is to analyze the components of the webpage itself. On the page currently ranked, what is the density of your keyword and where in the page does it occur? You’ll want to mimic both the density and placement on the second page. But again, keep in mind the rest of the content needs to be different. Just keep the numbers the same.

That was the easy part.

And the hard part. . . maybe. . . where are the links coming from that are going to the original page? Backlinks? Blog links? Other interior page links? One way links? anchor text links? etc. . . (You may want to use Market Samurai or the SEO Quake tool bar to help figure this out).

Once you do figure this out in a quantitative way, the goal is to mimic what you did on the first – without using the same sites. You can use some of the same sites to link to the second page – but ultimately you’ll want different links with simliar pagerank.

The folks at Google aren’t idiots. They may just notice if everything is duplicated. The key here is to create a natural web of links to both pages. And the second key is to have the patience to not expect results tomorrow. Do these things then wait a bit and see what happens.

If you’ve had luck with double or even triple listings – and have a “secret”, we’d love to hear it.

1. First, here’s a great article on Direct Marketing you might like to
read: http://sn.im/9f7n9

2.  ”Jeff Herring” is the guy I want you to Google.  Just copy and
paste that into Google and see what it returns. Other than the guy
from Utah, Jeff takes up the first 40 spots on the first 4 pages with
all kinds of different things including photos, articles and his
websites. If you want to get started on dominating your niche, copy
what he’s done – that’s a start, anyway. When I say copy, I mean if
he’s written articles at ezinearticles.com – go there and write
articles. If he’s posted photos on flickr.com, post some photos.
(You’ll need to note how he titled these things in order to make it to
the top of the search engines, feel free to call if you want
pointers).

3. If you want to get on Google’s first page, quickly – this is a
great guide. It’s not mine, but a guy in my mastermind group. This
one’s not free, but definitely worth having in your arsenal
http://sn.im/e5sup

4.  We talked about making videos a bit.  If you don’t see an
opportunity to take a camera out into the field and do videos like the
roofer does, or a plumber could – consider getting Jing. Jing is free
computer screen video capture software.  Basically, you hook a
microphone up to your computer, and talk while you do stuff on the
screen. You could have a power point presentation on the screen, you
could be showing how to fill out a Flood Insurance application, you
could be showing pictures of a home you just listed.  You talk, it
records you talking and everything on your screen (inside a square you
draw with their tool). You can see it in action at this site:
http://fromthedeskofmikestewart.com/blog/ or can download it here and
watch their tutorial: http://www.jingproject.com/ This one is
awesome!

5. Onlywire, TubeMogul, Ping.fm and Hellotxt.com are infrastructure
sites you’d be wise to build (or let us  ) Here’s where you upload
a video, article, photo or webpage and it gets disseminated to 130
websites or so. Great tool.

6. Keyword research is the key. If you want to know what your
customers are searching for. Plug your niche name “flood insurance”
“nashville homes” “skin treatment” into these tools:
http://google.com/sktool/#keywords, http://google.com/trends,
http://tools.seobook.com,
http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions or even Yahoo! Answers
(that’s a site where people submit questions.) Find out what people
want to know – and give it to them.

7. Flojo, here’s the site you want to look at:
http://passion.sitesell.com/limitedtime.html This would be an
awesome tool for you to use, learn and really hone in on what you’re
good at.  If you’re new to internet marketing, SiteBuildit has
EVERYTHING you need to get started. Keyword research, analyzers, video
tutorials, link building, easy site builder for people who know
nothing, newsletter e-mail marketing software, etc. . . It has
everything.

8. If you want to get a site up (or multiple sites up) which I
encourage you to do, Samantha. Then go to **GoDaddy and get yourself a
domain name, then go to http://danmorrismarketing.com/hosting and get
a hosting account. (get the baby plan).  Then call me and I’ll get you
set-up very quickly – perhaps even over the phone. No charge, I’ll
just get you going at least.

You could try your hand at loading up the blogging software yourself,
my friend Alex has a free tool to do that complete with videos.
Completely free. http://danmorrismarketing.com/expertwordpress

And sign up for our free tutorials site. We put together free videos
on how to do just about everything. In fact, if you ask a question,
we’ll put up a video answering so everyone can see it. It’s at
http://onlinemarketingedge.com

**I believe this will get you a discount at GoDaddy:
http://www.godaddy.com/domains/search.aspx?isc=cjc695tnw

9. http://www.ezinearticles.com is the best place to load up articles.
It gets 15 million hits per month.  Read about how to do article
marketing at http://ezinearticles.com/?expert_bio=Jeff_Herring (he’s
the main guy in this field).  Remember, if you’re going to talk about
it, record it using FreeConferencePro.com, have it transcribed then
edit and make it an article. Why not?

If you want to get paid to write articles and have your own on-line
column, check out http://examiner.com. They’re an online newspaper and
pay you for each person that views your article.  You’ll need a
reference to become an Examiner. My ID is 43202 – feel free to use it.

10.  Finally, consider taking some time out of your daily life to
REALLY learn how to market your business on-line. There’s a great 3
day workshop in Atlanta in August (which is getting close to sold out)
that is hands-on and teaches you everything you need to know. I’ll be
teaching about using Twitter in your marketing efforts. Please check
it out:

http://danmorrismarketing.com/nams

I could write and write and write about this stuff, but this is just
to help you get started.  I look forward to chatting with you all
again, please don’t hesitate to call if you really want pointers to
get started doing some of these things.  Enjoy your evening.

Dan Morris
615-804-2846
http://lettersfromdan.com
http://danmorrismarketing.com
http://facebook.com/danrmorris
http://twitter.com/danrmorris

We can also take that document and turn it into blog posts, we can use it to answer Wiki Answers or Yahoo! Answers questions. We can turn it into a podcast, create videos from it and even sell it on clickbank and some other sites. There’s really no limit to information products.

If you’re a local business, or just a guy with special knowledge – we can show you how to turn that simple idea into something spectacular. And one information product breeds another and another and another – and then guess what you have?  You’ve got enough material to amass a book, which you can sell on lulu.com, createspace, amazon and even barnesandnobles.com

What if we interviewed you about this information and invited our leads to it? Could we create a teleseminar series? A membership site? A home study guide?  Could we not sell personal time to help someone with the subject? And even grow to have live events based on the topic?

Sure we can! And we will!

Just call us so we can get started. . .

The internet is really just a collection of pages that are written in one of a few languages.  Some of these pages are grouped together with one web  domain like www.cnn.com. All of them are useless without a web browser (like Internet Expolorer) that will translate these pages for you and display them on your computer screen.

The only way you can find these pages is with search engines. Search engines, like Google,  are companies just like McDonald’s and Boeing.  When they started they thought a good business model would be to help organize all the sites on the internet.  They actually catalog all these separate pages and then “try to figure out” what the pages are about.

That’s important. The search engines “figure out” what your site is about.

The search engine companies figured if they could provide relevant results to a search query, they could also sell ad space and make money. So that’s what they do. And they try really hard to figure out what each separate page is about on the internet – and then display those pages to searchers.

People operate differently than search engines. They don’t try to figure anything out – and instead people who use the internet search for general terms. They hope the search engines do the “figuring out” for them.

Someone searching for “Nashville real estate” is either searching for pictures of houses to buy, a realtor to hire, land listings, the mls listings or an article on real estate. No one, including the search engines,  knows what they’re searching for, but them. In this case “Nashville real estate” is the keyword that the person is using to search for something.

If you are a realty office in Nashville, you want the search engines to understand that.  And then when someone searches for “Nashville real estate”, you want the search engines to present your page to the searcher in the listings. The person searching then gets to pick which website page they want to click on and visit.

Being on the first page of search results for “Nashville real estate” is very important for any Nashville realty office since that is what they specifically do. If the person searching was really searching for a business called “Nashville Realty”, they’ll look specifically for the result featuring their site – or they’ll try again.

No matter what, every realtor in the Nashville should be trying to get to #1 for the search keyword “Nashville real estate”. There’s no doubt about that. Then once that company is on the first page, or is in the top listings, they need to start thinking about testing what’s on their website. If no one is taking action on your site, just keep changing things until they do.

Remember, the search engines have to “figure out” what your site is about. All they have to use to figure this out are words. If your words don’t clearly tell the search engines what your site is about – you likely aren’t going to show up as a result to the right search question.

(Taken from http://Lettersfromdan.com) Ever seen Dog the Bounty Hunter? He’s a Harley-looking dude in Hawaii who goes around rounding up the bad guys. But he doesn’t just round them up, he takes them down with style. Duane “Dog” Chapman and his family have turned their little bounty hunter enterprise into a full blown reality TV sensation. Since 2005 Dog has also turned up as a guest star on other popular shows as well.

Alright, enough with the show prep. What has that got to do with your local business? Well let me answer that with a question. If you live in Hawaii and need a bounty hunter who are you going to call? I’ll answer that for you, you’re going to call Dog the Bounty Hunter because he is the expert.How did he become the expert? He did it by allowing you to see what he does for a living – but more importantly he shows you how he does it.

There’s a roofer in Maryland who has achieved the same “expert” status in his community. He didn’t have a TV show though. He, like you, has YouTube. He films himself everytime he gets on a roof to make his initial inspection. He films the roof while talking about the problems he sees and the solutions required.

He’s created so many films that he’s featured prominently when you search for his local keywords. That ability to prove yourself by allowing others to see your expert knowledge creates a level of trust, appreciation and credibility. Not only that, but he uses the video when he talks to the client and proves to them he understands their problems and necessary solutions.

Become the Dog of your community. Plan your work and turn it into a marketing and teaching moment. You’ll revel in the appreciation your local community shows and accomplish your marketing activities while you’re getting your work done.

Let us come to you and teach you what you need to know about the internet. Demystifying how to get to the top of Google is just one small part of the puzzle.  How about learning the hub-and-spoke structure of internet commerce? How about the buying process as it relates to your website’s content?

We’d love to come speak to you, your organization, your employees or annual meeting about the internet and how to better use it to improve your ROI.

Facebook and Twitter aren’t just for college kids.  Your customers are there – but more importantly they’re using the internet to get what they want. And if you know anything about your business, you likely sell something people are searching for right now.

Check out our Events Calendar at the top to see if we’re going to be appearing near you soon. But if we’re not – with the internet we can make it seem like we are.

The truth is I wasn’t even sure we had a phone book in the house. It had been so long since I’d used it – I actually didn’t know where to look. You know where I found it? In the cabinet with the booster seats. Sad, eh?

Since we got rid of our home phone, we just don’t have that “area” set aside in the house anymore. That’s the future of the Yellow Pages. But the reason the Yellow Pages have been so important to us – is the #1 reason we’re successful marketing local businesses on the internet.

The Yellow Pages are a synchronous media. That means that the Yellow Pages are there when you are looking. Radio advertising, Billboards, bus benches, internet banner ads and pay per click are all asynchronous media types. For instance, if you’re looking for a financial planner – what are the odds you’ll hear an advertisement for one on the radio if you turned it on right now?

Our goal is to make sure that you’re listed once, twice, three times and even four times in the search results when people are searching for you. If you search for Bloomington IL Painting Contractor, you’re going to find Martins Painting & Decorating 3 or 4 times on that page. Today. Tomorrow and Next Week.