Take the Notice of Privacy Practices from the EMPLOYMENT page link and create a separate page for it.  Then have it link as a drop down choice under About IMGPC, Our Services, Our Providers and Contact Us.   Take it off the Employment page.



Welcome to this week's MIND Your Business Podcast, presented by the minds at MIND Development and Design and our friends at Fresh Roasted Hoasting.  Thank you for checking us out on iTunes and Stitcher...thank you for the Pinterest interest.  And as always thank you Whiff Roasters in Lititz, PA...I just picked up a batch of coffee and chicory from them using their Three Amigos blend.  I actually like it better than the Kick Ass and chicory blend.  Which is REALLY good, mind you....but this one I think is better.  Either way, I will continue being your willful guinea pig for this goodness.

(DROP:  Is there anybody here on a low budget?)

As promised, this week I've got some tips for all of you who are on a (Lowwwww Budget).   Hey, there's no worse feeling than pouring your heart and soul into your business...something you're REALLY passionate about...and feeling like you can't compete online and get decent ranking and get found.

Au contraire, mum fraire.......I just love saying that.  Makes me feel bilingual.   Today's show will lift your spirits with some legitimate advice YOU can put into practice:)

By the way...Last Friday I went to the Social Media @ Work conference at Harrisburg University with our social media Swami Kris Bradley and had the privilege of experiencing the presentation of Mark Schaefer, who has written numerous books on social media including The Content Code...a MUST READ, by the way.   I gotta tell ya...I don't normally like these kinds of events because too often the keynote speakers tend to be LECTURERS and the presentations tend to be aeseptic.

This guy just blew my mind and packed more truth into an hour than I've ever witnessed before...totally worth the price of admission himself.  Kris will be on next week and we will discuss some key learning points from the Social Media @ work conference...you don't want to miss this one, TRUST ME!

We're talking about low budget SEO this week and it's a topic that comes with a great....big....asterisk!   I want you to know that to do SEO completely and properly you need more than a low budget.  I would be lying to your face and through your headphones if I told you anything different.   SEO has evolved greatly in the 6 years I've been doing it and it has become MUCH more of an ongoing process.

To put this in perspective...my very first SEO client 6 years ago hired me to go in, fix titles and descriptions and content, etc. as well as filling out their local search engine listings.  I did all of that and LEGITIMATELY got them on the first page....in several cases to NUMBER ONE...for 9 out of 11 of our main keyword searches.

A LOT has changed since then...mainly with the scope of your keyword searches.  You're casting a wider net...you HAVE to, especially if you're on a (Lowwwwwwwww Budget).

I've always believed in the power of blogging...even when many people just looked at it as an exercise in egocentricity.  Blogging is YOUR opportunity to share YOUR heart and YOUR expertise with visitors and build TRUST with them as the APPROACHABLE EXPERT.   More on that in a bit.

Bottom line is that while you truly DO need to budget for SEO and to do it right is honestly not cheap, there ARE things you can do when you're on a low budget that will keep you as competitive as you can be until you can invest more.  Bear in mind that these things are NOT the keys to the kingdom and I guarantee that if you don't keep up with this stuff, whatever ranking you gain today can EASILY be lost tomorrow through neglect.

Consistency is the name of the game.

I'm going to give you  5 major tips this week that you can use to put your business on the map, improve your online presence and lay the proper foundation for your future Search Engine Optimization.

The first tip seems obvious, but it's evidentally not obvious AT ALL, since there are so many listings that remain unclaimed.    CLAIM your Google My Business listing!  Claim it!   Put this podcast on pause RIGHT NOW and go to google.com - forward slash - business and make sure your listing has been claimed by YOU or by a representative YOU have authorized.  And if your listing is claimed and you don't have your login information to access it, then as far as I'm concerned your listing is not claimed.

On one of our VERY FIRST MIND Your Business Podcasts we said and I will reiterate...SEO is NOT a specator sport.  It is ongoing and you should have immediate access to ALL of your online profiles.  Create a document and have ALL of your login information there.   I've said it before and it PAINS me to say it again, but it's the truth...if you treat this as an afterthought, then why should ANYONE treat you and your business as anything more than an afterthought?

I really hate saying that, but it's just the truth.  Why do you think I'm on here every week blathering about this stuff....I LOVE YOU and I care.  I've never met most of you, but in many, many ways I've been in your shoes and all of us here at MIND have been in your shoes...Trying to help people, run a legitimate business, survive and thrive in the worst economy we've seen truly since the Great Depression.   The Media wants to tell us the economy is rebounding...meh...you and I know it's an ongoing struggle.

Claim your Google My Business listing.   No one thing is the proverbial keys to the kingdom, but this one is admittedly huge.  It immediately affects how you appear online and it's an immediate link to your website so people can get to know you and trust you:)

Second tip:  Don't forget Bing and Yahoo Local listings.   Access Bing Local at bingplaces.com and Yahoo Local at local.yahoo.com.  Hey I know what you're thinking...but Google has the lion's share of the search engine market!   Heck, there's a running joke that BING is an anacronym for But It's Not Google.   Truth is, there are a lot of factions...search engines, social media and otherwise...that are trying to bring down Google.  When you're as big as they are, you have to expect it...and they do...and they're prepared for it.   Duck Duck Go is a more recent addition to the search engine wars.

It was recently reported that Bing now has a 20% search engine market share.   Before you take that at Face Value, bear in mind that Bing is the default search engine on XBox and on Apple iPhones and iPads.   That is a market of people who are LEAST likely to change their default search engine settings, so they're mostly going with Bing BY DEFAULT.  To quote the great philosopher Jerry Seinfeld..."Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

Truly, Bing saw an opportunity and they TOOK it...and it seems to be working for them.   It remains to be seen what the long-term effects will be, BUT in the meantime...make sure you have properly filled out your Bing and Yahoo local profiles.  Cover ALL of your local profile bases...it will only HELP you!

Third Tip:   I'm only going to touch on this briefly because we covered it in detail on our previous podcast from February 19th entitled "Google has no SEO partners, PPC is NOT SEO, and SEO is NOT PPC and WTF is NOT LOL."  That is a shameless plug for that podcast, but I stand behind it.    Make sure that you don't get PPC confused with SEO.   They are separate entities, but there are a lot of SEO's who blur the lines and make it confusing.   PPC is pay-per-click advertising and SEO is ORGANIC listings.   Don't get the two confused and treat them with mutual respect in your efforts.   And if ANYONE uses the term "Google Certified Partner" with regard to SEO, you know you don't want to work with them because they're blurring the lines.

Take a break, have some coffee, a soda, a water or some pomegranate juice and when we come back I've got two more solid tips for you and how YOU can give your business a legitimate chance to be found even if you're on a small budget...


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And we are BACK with the MIND Your Business podcast...talking about what you can do to legitimately improve your SEO if you're on a (lowwwwwwwww budget).     In the first segment, we covered CLAIMING your Google My Business listing and NOT assuming it's been claimed....claiming your Bing and Yahoo local listings.....and making sure that you know that PPC and SEO are NOT the same so you don't get ripped off by those who like to blur the lines.

The 4th tip I have for you is this...USE your Facebook page and your social media.  USE it.   I mentioned earlier and on previous podcasts about the importance of your blog for communicating with your audience and building up trust.   Hey, I KNOW that some of what you have to say can be found elsewhere on the Interne, but people need to hear it from YOU...in YOUR words...from YOUR UNIQUE perspective.  Give yourself some credit, huh???

Your blog page is your opportunity to share your knowledge, expertise and helpful tips with your audience.  It's also an opportunity to share your own humanity and bring people into your business and what goes into doing what you do.  At the Social Media @Work conference last Friday, Mark Schaefer gave the example of a winemaker who posted numerous brief, say...two minute...videos of him in the field at work and his videos brought you into the heart of his business.   One of the videos showed him kneeling and inspecting what were obviously DECIMATED grapevines with hardly anything on them...and he said, very simply, "This is what a 15 minute hailstorm can do."

Powerful stuff.   HUMAN stuff!   No matter what you do in your business, you go through some major ups and downs and ride an emotional rollercoaster like anyone else.   Don't be afraid to share this with your audience.   This is how you build interest in your brand.   I've said it so many times and I'll say it till the day I die...people want to know there is a living, breathing, beating heart behind your business because by investing in your product or service they are investing in YOU.

Corporate America has driven the concept of "keeping business and personal separate" into the ground to the point of contradiction.   These same entities that will say you have to keep business and personal separate are the very entities that will turn right around and talk about how their work environment and staff are like a big family....

Exsqueeze me....baking powder?   Yes, I just went Wayne's World on you there.

Contradiction...we have no room for that in the transparent world of modern Internet marketing and SEO and that's why so many companies are CLUELESS and continue to invest in the snake oil salesmen who tell them exactly what they want to hear...in accordance with what they've been systematically instructed to say.

Use your blog page to share your knowledge, expertise and heart...and USE your Facebook and your other social media platforms...LinkedIn is PRIME if you're a B2B company...use your social media to broadcast the information you post on your blog 2 or 3 times a week.    Your social media can really drive some good traffic to your site as long as you have something GOOD for your visitors:)

Tip Number 5...Get a link on Best of the Web and submit to DMoz.org.   Best of the Web is one of the oldest and most trusted directories on the Internet.   It is the EXCEPTION to the rule that you don't pay for links.  Google TRUSTS Best of the Web and it is worth the money...2 or 3 hundred dollars a year...to have Best of the Web linking to your site.  It's really that simple.  Just go to BOTW.org.   While you're at it, go to dmoz.org and submit your website for inclusion there.   The DMoz link is free, but fair warning...it could take you MONTHS and several resubmissions, before you actually show up on there.

Like Best of the Web, DMoz is one of the oldest directories on the web and one of Google's most TRUSTED directories.  It's worth the extra effort to try to get a link from them.  Again, links are not the be all and end all, but they still count...especially when they're high quality links.

Now...as a BONUS TIP!  Make sure you at least have Geo Meta Tags in your website code to indicate your geographical location to the search engine bots...Schema data is most preferable, but at least make sure you have Geo Tags there.


Thank you so much for listening to this MIND Your Business Podcast, presented by MIND Development and Design and our friends at Fresh Roasted Hosting.  We all really hope you found this information helpful and empowering for you to improve and get more out of your online presence.   Thank you Whiff Roasters in Lititz, PA for keeping me caffeinated with the Three Amigos and chicory blend.  Thank you for listening on iTunes and Stitcher and for the interest on Pinterest.  Send us your questions through Facebook, comment on our podcast page, email us at info@minddnd.com or just click that curiously strong ask a question button on the right side of our podcast page.  See you here next week!