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What Can Twitter Do For You?

Twitter is hot, but many people still do not understand why they should Twitter for their business. Here’s my answer in a nutshell: Twitter gives you a voice. Twitter drives traffic to your website. Twitter allows you to go viral with a message.

Just those three things that Twitter does for you makes it an incredibly valuable tool as part of your marketing arsenal.

Twitter gives you a “voice”

What do I mean by that. Well, Twitter puts a voice and persona behind your corporate message. When you interact with followers on Twitter you exchange personal information and points of view. You remove the corporate mask and become a “real” person to followers – someone they can relate to and may want to get to know better.

Twitter drives traffic to your website

If you do not understand the value of Twitter yet, sign up for a bit.ly account and shrink every one of your tweet URLs in your bit.ly account first before you put it in TweetDeck. At the end of the week look at the number of clicks to the links you tweet about. The figures will stagger you. If you have worked to really connect with your followers on Twitter they will reward you by clicking your links. If some of these links are to your website, you are actively driving traffic to your own website.

Twitter allows you to go viral with a message

You just cannot put a dollar price tag on this one. It ranks up there with invaluable exposure. When you have something important to share, a hot news tip, a new point of view, or a discovery when you share it on Twitter your message can go viral. First you tweet it and share it with all of your followers, them some of your followers will retweet your link and note to all of their followers, some of their followers will retweet and so on and so on. It is easy to get massive free exposure or have a message go viral using Twitter and the power of personal connection.

If that’s not enough?

Remember this is all free! You just have to take the time to tweet. Certainly anyone can write 140 characters with a link and take advantage of all Twitter has to offer. You really should give it a try!

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Check Out Our White Papers and Downloads

If you haven’t browsed our website recently, I would like to invite you to do so. We have a wealth of information on many important and interesting topics. All of our papers are free. For just a few top papers you may have to share your email address with us and that will subscribe you to our monthly e-newsletter. But never fear, we never spam you and we do have great articles in our newsletter and you can easily unsubscribe anytime.

So, without further ado, here’s the link to our download and white paper section. Below is a list of some of our topics to whet your appetite.

Twitter Demystified for Business Users
Twitter 101
How to Use LinkedIn for Successful Social Networking
The Tangible Benefits of Blogging White Paper
AdWords and Yahoo! Sponsored Search Compared White Paper
Advanced Digital Photography
Computer Network Set Up For High Speed Internet Access
Domain Name Spoofing, Our Candid Experience
Google Sitemap Instructions
Hawaiian Screen Saver–Free Download
How to Turn Your Vinyl Albums into CDs
Networking Basics
Washington DC Screen Saver — Free Download
Yellowstone National Park Screen Saver — Free Download
And more…

I usually do one big white paper a year and this last year my white papers were on Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have a topic that you would like to learn more about, just click comments below and I’ll consider it for my next white paper.

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Creating a File Shortcut in Office Applications

windows-tipI think that you will love this neat little shortcut that I have been using, if you don’t know about it already. Follow the instructions below to add a shortcut link on the system file menu screen for any Microsoft Office Applications. Now, I just wish Microsoft would allow me to create these handy shortcuts from any Windows and systems application.

I’ve inserted an image from one of my file menus just to the right so you can see exactly what I am talking about. As I do not save my files in the My Documents folder, it is helpful for me to have shortcuts to file locations that I use frequently on the file menu bar. Here’s how to do it so you can save time too.

  1. Open the office application of your choice (Word, Excel etc.). Microsoft calls this file menu the “My Places” bar. Navigate to and select, but do not open the folder that you want to add to the menu.
  2. Click Tools and then Add to My Places. Your selected folder will now appear at the bottom of the My Places menu bar. If you don’t see it, right click on the bar and select small icons as it may be hidden for the moment or resize the dialog box so you can see your new folder.
  3. To move your new folder up to the top of the menu on the My Spaces bar, right click on the item you want to move and click move up or move down as needed.

I find the addition of my most frequently used files to be very helpful and only wish that I could do this in all my computer applications. I think that once you try it, you’ll be doing custom file additions to your My Places bar too!

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Google Maps Placement Revisited

Google AdWords has done away with the local business ad that allowed you to specifically target Google Maps with your ads. For some AdWords programs we had set up separate campaigns just to feed results to the sponsored ad section on Google Maps with great results for some clients. With this important change for Google Maps, organic placement of your Google maps listing is now even more important, but just how do you improve your local organic Google Maps placement? This article may very well help you. You can visit this article on our website at: http://www.mccordweb.com/e-newsletters/instructions/google-maps-placement.php

“Why is my competitor the top site in Google Maps? How can I get there too?” Google has been pretty closed mouthed about their Google Maps algorithm and there really does not seem to be a lot of information on the Web about how to garner top placement. I decided that I should dig into this topic to try to find out what can be done to try to improve Google Maps placement for you.

First, it is important to understand that Google Maps will return the businesses that are in closest proximity to the center of the search query location. For example if I enter a search query in Google Maps for web design Waldorf Maryland, my own site appears in the number two position and one of my competitors appears first. She is located very close to the geographic center of Waldorf, has a site similar to mine and has been in business for a while. I am actually located about 9 miles or so out of Waldorf yet appear in a higher position than other sites that are located actually in Waldorf.

Screenshot showing Google Maps listings appearing just above organic listings and under paid sponsored ads.So, it appears that proximity is important to the center point of the search query, but Google is also taking into account other key factors when sorting the results. As I analyze my own situation, I see that my competitor has links from several very specific community sites that I do not have such as a link from the Chamber of Commerce, The Southern Maryland Tech Council, and a local business directory. Specifically, in my case I have nearly two times the amount of inbound links to my site than my competitor does, but I do not have the Chamber or County resource links. Clearly links from local directories and resources are more important for ranking in Google maps than the amount of content on a site and possibly even the number of inbound links to a site. Google Maps is very heavily weighting certain local factors in regard to determining top Google Maps position.

Additionally, in my case, reviews do not seem to be an important issue for my own Google Maps position, but they can be helpful for many businesses. In regard to Google Maps position and service reviews, you will not necessarily take a position hit for reviews or lack there of unless your competitor has several reviews and you have none.

The amount of information that your Local Business listing for Google Maps does not seem to be a big factor either for top Google Maps placement. In my case, I have a depth of information my competitor has literally no depth of information in her Google Maps listing. So depth of information although important and helpful to readers does not impact Google Maps placement.

In my case the only clear difference that is impacting Google Maps placement is the type of local authority links that my competitor has. As I did further research on this topic, I did find some helpful tips that I would like to share with you that may help you as you work to raise your Google Maps position.

  1. Get links from other local resources. If you are a member of the Chamber of Commerce make sure that they have linked to your website from theirs. Consider other authoritative local listing sites, but stay away from link farms. Other local sites might include the Yellow Pages, local business associations, and local review sites.
  2. Make sure to include your street address, and at least your city and state on each page on your website in text versus in an image.
  3. On your contact page repeat your full address with the city and even list the local areas your service by name.
  4. Add as much information as you can to your Local Business listing such as hours driving directions, areas served, consider adding a local coupon or discount.
  5. If you do not have a Google Local Business listing which will show in Google Maps, you can get one free from Google. You will need to create a Google account in order to do so.

If you don’t think that you should be thinking about your own Google Maps position, you may want to think again. In many cases Google is now showing Google Map listings on top and above all organic listings. Improving your own position on Google Maps is doable and can help improve your overall visibility on the Web.

If you like this article you may find more that you will find helpful in our instructions section or white paper section on our website.