Nate Covington

It appears that Google Maps / Google Local Business Center has updated their listings service to include reporting and other data - neat! (see below) If your business is not listed in Google's local business center, you can add your listing here.

Dear Nate,

We are writing to let you know about an important update to your Google Local Business Center account (log in at www.google.com/lbc).

Your account now has a new interface designed to show you more about how customers interact with your verified business listing. A new reporting dashboard shows statistics about your business listing, like how many users saw your business as a local search result, zip codes where driving directions requests come from, and the top search queries for which your business appeared. Here is a sample of your data:

Business: Covington Creations, LLC
Impressions in the last 30 days: 282

This information and more can also be found here: www.google.com/lbc.

Sincerely,

The Google Maps Team
Google Inc

Tip: You can now hire us to manage your Google Local Business listing data, along with other social media and website optimization requirements.  

“Nate has been our website consultant since 2009 and his value as a trusted advisor continues to grow. Nate helped us redesign our website last year and we were very happy with the fresh new look and keen marketing suggestions he provided. We have always found Nate to be responsive and reliable and we value his perspective and support.”

Three separate business units, one umbrella company. How to organize it all? Divide, conquer, and cross-promote.

“We’ve been impressed with Nate’s responsiveness to our ever-changing website design needs. His service is fast and accurate, and he has done a great job at creating a nice looking and functional site.”
- Kent Gerhart, Canon Capital

We built this site for the Helen L. Diller Vacation Home for Blind Children.  The site is powered by an open-source Content Management System, which allows the home's staff to post news and announcements to the site, update photo galleries, and more.  The site also features powerful forms for collecting camper applications, employment applications, and parent surveys.

Freddy Hill Farms & Fun Center came to us with the need to update their own web site.  We redesigned and rebuilt their web site using a Content Management System, which allows them to add announcements, events, and multimedia to the site.

As a business owner, it is frustrating to think that there are potential clients browsing my web site that I may never know about or meet. These people may have found my site by accident, and they might have received my direct mail piece which has motivated them to log onto your site.

What can we find out about these people? Our first stop is Google Analytics, which is a free visitor tracking tool. You could literally spend all day going through the data that Google gives you. My favorite place to "snipe for sales leads" is the Google Analytics "Network Location" report. For starters, this is how we access this data:

1. Log into Google Analytics here:
   http://www.google.com/analytics/
   (If you don't have an Analytics account, it's free. You should.)
2. Click "view reports" on the opening screen to access your reports.
3. In the menu of the left side of the page, navigate here:
   Visitors -> Network Properties -> Network Location

1. Which pages does Google have indexed from my site?
   This is a great way to see if any pages are listed in Google that you don't want the general public to see!  If you recently launched your site, this technique will tell you if Google has you in their system yet or not.  View a listing of all pages that Google has indexed from your site by searching for "site:www.yourcompany.com"
   
2. What other pages link to my site?
   This is a great way to see how popular your site is (in Google's eyes) which is one of the greatest contributors to SEO / organic listing rank. View a listing of all pages that Google records (generally only of PageRank4 or higher) by searching for "link:www.yourcompany.com"
   Bonus hint: If you want to receive notifications any time someone mentions your company or brand on Google, sign up for Google Alerts.
3. I just lost a page or graphic from my web site - how can I recover it?
   Option 1: Use Google's Cache
   Bonus hint (Option 2): Use Archive.org's Way Back Machine

In an article released earlier this month, the French Police reported saving millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu, an open-source alternative to Microsoft Windows.  This is because open-source software is free to use.  It is developed by thousands of like-minded computer nerds (like me) who collaborate to build powerful, effective software.

Open source content management system software is a great way to take control of your web site, and unlike 10 years ago, it won't cost you $20,000 to hire a developer to build it from scratch.  Contact us to learn how open source software can help make your web site work for you!

Google has released a video explaining the logic behind bidding on keywords using Adwords:

"Our Chief Economist, Hal Varian, explains the AdWords Ad Auction and how your max CPC bid and quality score determine how much you pay for a click on Google.com."

Disclaimer:  Whenever he says, "Google wants to make a good experience for both the advertiser and the user so that they come back and use our services in the future" - he really means, "Google wants to keep advertisers and users connected through their revenue machine."

Facebook has recently launched a new application that allows people to post comments using their Facebook accounts to 3rd-party sites.

This means two things:

1. People that leave comments with their account are more likely to leave honest, legitimate comments on your site, as it will be linked directly to their Facebook profile.
2. During periods of heavy traffic, your own web server is not handling all of the traffic, as all of the comments and user logins will run from Facebook's server instead.

Please contact us if you are interested in adding this functionality to your site!