During PubCon in Las Vegas last month, Brian Combs was interviewed by WebProNews. They discussed the importance of one’s business being listed within Google Maps, and steps one needs to take to have that listing found by prospective customers.
Brian Combs, principal of ionadas local, will be speaking at PubCon Vegas again this year, with a pair of sessions on the first day, November 10, 2009:
Interactive Site Reviews: Focus on Organic
11:30am-12:45pm
Live critiques of attendee websites, with actionable advice on how to improve the sites’ search engine optimization.
How Do You Optimize For Universal and Personal Search?
2:55pm-4:10pm
Brian’s third time on a PubCon Universal and Personal Searc panel, he will be speaking on how the search engines blend local results with the traditional SERPs.
A quick glance at the Google Maps Help Pages shows how easy it is to run into problems when optimizing your local business listings.
A few of the current entries include:
While many of these problems are not the fault of the business, some are certainly self-inflicted, whether due to violating Google’s terms and conditions or due to sending confusing signals to the system. Local businesses of all sizes should read our new white paper on Avoiding Local SEO Mistakes so that they don’t have to wait fruitlessly for a reply from the understaffed and overworked customer support department at Google Maps.
Come see Brian Combs of ionadas local speak at Interactive Strategies 2009 in Houston on September 9, 2009. Brian will be speaking on SEO vs. PPC in the 3:10pm session.
Interactive Strategies 2009 is a full day conference sponsored by the Houston Interactive Marketing Association and includes tracks on Social Media, SEO, Creative and Strategy. The keynote is by Brian Solis, the principal of FutureWorks, a PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley.
Attendees can register online and receive a 15% discount by using the promotional code “bcombs”.
SXSW Interactive 2010 may be seven months away, but part of it is heating up already: the “Panel Picker” has just launched. This is a website that allows you to have a voice on the topics for SXSW Interactive, by voting them up or down, and commenting on them.
Brian Combs of ionadas local is in the running this year, with this topic:
(Simple + Searchable) x (WordPress Websites) = Results
This session will explore how to use the blogging application WordPress as a platform for a company website. This approach is idea for a small business, as it allows a company to have a professional web presence without spending thousands of dollars. It takes advantage of the thousands of available WordPress themes, most of which are free. Even the expensive themes are generally under $100.
Best of all, if you want to have a custom look and feel designed for you later, it can be built around the WordPress platform, so that all your content is already loaded.
If this session is going to happen, however, we need your help. Please vote for Brian’s session at the SXSW Interactive Panel Picker.
Vote early. Vote often!
