If you’re a small business owner, you know the importance of getting your website out in front of potential customers. The Internet has upended the field of marketing, and successful companies are devoting at least 40% of their marketing budget to web and search marketing. But building an online presence for your business is hard work. One algorithm changes and suddenly your website drops in search rankings. The most important quality in search isn’t technical brilliance. It’s your ability to adapt. With that in mind, here’s the next thing you need to focus on. It’s a sea of change from previous search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. And it’s the future of search. What is Voice Search? Voice search refers to any technology that allows users to conduct Internet searches via voice recognition rather than typing. When we talk about Voice Search, we mean several searching technologies that big players such […]
You Can Now Add ‘Services’ to Your Google My Business Page
If you’re not a search engine optimization geek then you may not have noticed, but Google now allows businesses to add lists of services to their Google My Business (GMB) pages. The rollout appears to be happening quietly but also pretty quickly. We’ve tested a few GMB listings for our clients and it seems like about half of them have the option to add service menus. If this change sticks around, expect it to reach most of the North American GMB community in a few days. The change was reported on by various search engine marketing industry blogs over the last week. At LinkNow Media we’re always trying to find new ways to improve our clients’ local search rankings and we expect this will be a great tool moving into the future. What’s Changed? Have you ever performed a search for a laundromat near you? Go ahead and do it […]
“The Shed at Dulwich”: How a Fake Restaurant Soared to the Top of TripAdvisor (And What it Means for Your Business)
The most interesting soft story in reviews for 2017-2018 is without a doubt the curious case of The Shed at Dulwich. Over the course of seven months, Oobah Butler, a 27-year old freelance writer who works for Vice, managed to transform the shed in the back of his garden into the hottest and most exclusive restaurant in London. The problem? The restaurant didn’t exist. To uncover how Butler pulled off his scheme, we’re going to look at TripAdvisor and how gaming the system with fake reviews was the key to creating The Shed at Dulwich hoax. It All Starts With a Well-Designed Website Journalists have devoted many words to The Shed at Dulwich. I’ll be offering a bit of a recap of some of these points. It seems that Mr. Butler got the idea for his hoax after he was paid to write fake reviews of restaurants on TripAdvisor for […]
White-Hat SEO: How Playing by the Rules Can Help You Win
If you want to make sure that your website ranks well on Google without facing any potential penalties that could end up hurting your brand, then you need to look take a close look at white-hat SEO. If you are unsure about what white-hat SEO really is and want more information about how this approach can help take your business to the next level, then don’t worry because we at LinkNow Media are here to help explain everything you need to know. The first thing that you need to understand about white-hat SEO techniques is that they are the most legitimate means of increasing your business’s visibility, and any dividend that you obtain from this endeavour will enhance your site’s online ranking capabilities without the risk of any penalties being incurred. One of the biggest concerns that many business owners have about adopting white-hat SEO techniques is that if they […]
Waze Launches Waze Local Advertising
Waze Local: A Powerful New Weapon for Your Arsenal At 6:30 a.m. this morning, I was packing lunch for my two daughters when my phone started buzzing like a hive. SearchEngineLand broke the news that Waze Local had finally launched and the blogosphere took notice. I was so distracted, I almost added my keys to my morning blender smoothie. Readers—this is a big deal. I Don’t Get It. What’s So Exciting About Waze Local? Waze Local is an advertising tool platform that small businesses can use to transmit their locations to users of the Waze app. At LinkNow Media, we’re always trying to stay on top of the latest developments in search engine optimization and search engine marketing. When we hear about a new ad platform, we get excited. Waze Local was in beta for most of the last year, but now it’s open to anybody who wants to promote […]