There has been a recent trend with all of the major search engines, that you need to take advantage of now. That trend is local search. Going back as recently as 8 months ago, when searching for your company on the internet, a person would have to enter your company’s name and city in the search box. What if the customer knew you were a general contractor, but forgot your company’s name. The same sort of search would be made “general contractor sacramento”.

Local search has changed!

Today, search engines have gotten smarter. To find a roofer in your locality, all one would have to do is enter the term “roofer” and depending where the client was located Google will display a map with 10 options. That too has changed, Google has upped the ante to include just 7 possible choices. This has made it critical to for you to ensure your presence, otherwise you’ll get lost.

I’ve written before about local search, social media and website optimization as sorely needed tools for any business looking to get found on the internet.

Well today, I have good news! You don’t have to spend a fortune to accomplish high rankings in local search. Frankly, most company’s offering similar services are newbies in local search and charge “big bucks” for their website optimization services. That would be great, if you are looking for top rankings in a broad market. What I mean by that, is getting ranked highly for the term electrical contractor means you would have to compete with all of the contractor directories and national organizations.

What’s missing is a laser targeted placement in your local hometown, listing your company and your specialty. And come to think of it, wouldn’t it be nice if you were a dentist, let’s say, and you were listed in the top spot for “emergency tooth replacement”. We all know not many people are searching for that particular service, but when they do, they are willing to pay a premium if your comapny could be found. The same analogy could be used with a roofer, “emergency roof replacement”.  This is where a targeted local search campaign can reward your company with bushels of money!

Until now, if you wanted to take the time to list your company with 40 or more website directories and yellow page sites, you would have to spend a minimum of 10 hours! I know this to be true, because this is one of the most important ways to get your company listed and ranked highly with search engines. Using this strategy alone has quadrupled or more the number of visitors to my clients’ websites. The downside has always been the time it took to get listed.

The good news is, after spending numerous hours of submitting and systematizing my work for my clients, I have been able to offer an affordable option. Starting today, for an annual fee of just $199 I can have your company listed in all of the major search engines and over 40 internet directory and mobile search sites.

So where will my company get listed?

LOCAL SEARCH / MOBILE

Yahoo! • MSN / Live.com • Google • AOL • Citysearch • YellowPages.com • SuperPages • WhitePages • Yelp • Local.com • Quebecor/canoe inc. • InfoSpace/Idearc • Ask • BlackBerry/RIM • infoUSA • Express Update • Acxiom • Dex • iBegin • Insider Pages • OpenList • Yellow Book • Yellow Page City • Yelp • Disney • Topix • VP.com • Zingy • Deep Data • AllPages • LocalMatters • BeanPool • HelloMetro • OneCallNow • Search Iniatives • Switchboard.com • Electronic Directories (Yellow Pages, Inc.)

GPS Navigation / Mapping

MapQuest • OnStar • tomtom • Lowarnce • TeleAtlas • DigiWalker • ALK • ViaMichelin • Zenrin

411

LSSI • INFONXX • V-enable • TellMe

Some list, eh?

I don’t want to turn this blog into a sales page, if you would like to do this yourself, I just provided a great list of websites to go to and sign up and submit your company. If you would like to have our company submit for you, then you’ll have to visit our client services website by clicking here!

In the meantime, I hope this helps to understanding how you can get your business found on the internet. Please feel free to leave us your comments. If you would like to speak to me personally, click the “Call Me Now” button on the right hand side of the page and I will be happy to speak with you.

And have you ever considered what would happen to your personal information if someone were to get their hands on it?

Everyday we hear nightmare stories of Stolen Identities. One way to avoid becoming the next statistic is to use unique passwords for the websites you visit. Below is one of the many ways to make passwords unique and secure. And all the while, easy to remember.

1. Passwords should be at the minimum a combination of numbers and letters.
2. The ideal password would also combine the numbers and letters with symbols.
3. Passwords should be a minimum of 6 characters long. The ideal length of passwords should be 8 – 10 characters.
4. You should use a combination of capitalized and non-capitalized letters in your password.

So how are you going to devise a password that does all of the above and still be memorable? Here is a simple strategy.

• Capitalize the third letter of a password.
• If symbols are allowed, some websites may not allow symbols, convert the vowels to a symbol:a = @, e = 3, i = 1, o = 0, u = ^
• Start you password with two numbers, if symbols are allowed you can use the equivalent symbol for the numbers(i.e., 1 =! , 2 = @, 3 = #, etc.).

Examples:

For the website: HomeDepot.com

Pick two favorite two digit numbers. For this example my numbers are 45 & 87.

My symbol combinations for my favorite numbers are: $% and *& respectively.

Example #1 – 8 character password

$%h0M3d3 This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.

Example #2 – 8 character password, no symbols

45h0M3d3 This password should only be used when symbols are not allowed. It is always best to include a symbol. Please note, all the same rules applied without the symbols.

Example #3 – 13 character password

$%h0M3d3p0t*& This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.

In this example, we used both of our favorite number combinations as symbols.

Last Example: 8 character password, symbols and a very short domain(website name):

For the website: Go.com

This provides us with a variation using all of the rules we learned before. For an eight character password, we have to juggle somethings up.

$%g0.C0m Instead of using just the domain name, we also included the suffix of “.com” by using the same rules. When used in combination, all of these passwords are considered to be very strong and hard to guess.

Here are a couple of Do’s & Don’ts

Here are some guidelines about what secure passwords should not include:

• Your name
• Your spouse’s name
• Your parent’s name
• Your pet’s name
• Your child’s name
• Names of close friends or coworkers
• Names of your favorite fantasy characters
• Your boss’s name
• Anybody’s name
• The name of the operating system you’re using
• The hostname of your computer
• Your phone number
• Your license plate number
• Any part of your social security number
• Anybody’s birth date
• Other information that is easily obtained about you
• Words such as wizard, guru, gandalf, and so on.
• Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, etc.)
• A word in the English dictionary
• A word in a foreign dictionary
• A place
• A proper noun
• Passwords of all the same letter
• Simple patterns on the keyboard, like qwerty
• Any of the above spelled backwards
• Any of the above followed or prepended by a single digit

Good passwords:

• Have both upper and lower case letters
• Have digits and/or punctuation characters as well as letters
• Are easy to remember, so they do not have to be written down
• Are seven or eight characters long
• Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder

SecurityStats.com This site has a great tool to test the strength of your passwords along with some other useful tips.

Microsoft.com Has a wonderful article about Strong passwords: How to create and use them you can read this by clicking here.

While there are many different strategies commonly used in customizing passwords, I have found this to be the easiest to remember for multiple websites. Another great way of managing passwords is to use a software based program. There are many available for both PC’s and Mac’s. A Google search using the phrase of “password manager mac” or “password manager pc” will provide you with an abundant list of alternatives.