Central Perk

joi, 11 aprilie 2013

This is a critical moment

Hello, all --

For the first time since the 1990s, Congress might be on track to pass legislation aimed at reducing gun violence in the United States. And it's because folks in Washington are starting to understand that the rest of the country isn't going to sit by and let them ignore this issue. Your voices are the reason we have a chance to win this debate. The American people expect and demand a yes or no vote.

But this is a critical moment. It's been almost four months since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, thousands more Americans have died at the hands of gun violence, and time is on the side of those who would prefer that we do nothing.

We want to make sure that your voices are impossible to ignore. So we're asking people from all over the country to speak out online in concert -- all at the same time. Will you join us?

Pledge to speak out about the need to reduce gun violence.

It's easy to participate. Over the next few days, anyone can sign up to tweet or share a message to Facebook. Through that time, we'll gather up as many people as we can. Then we'll make sure that all these individual messages get posted together in the same moment for maximum effect.

That wave of social media will get seen by millions and millions of people.

We're talking about common-sense reforms. Like the idea that any of us who want to buy a gun should have to go through a background check first -- which 90 percent of Americans support.

So let's make sure that there's absolutely no confusion about the public consensus.

Pledge to speak out with us, and then forward this email to your family and friends:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/now-is-the-time/action

Thanks!

David

David Simas
Deputy Senior Advisor
The White House

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Finding and Building Citations Like an Agency

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 12:44 PM PDT

Posted by Casey Meraz

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

So you want to rank locally? If you have already worked hard to add a few citations, complete your on-site local optimization, acquire customer reviews, and build some locally relevant links, well, now it's time to shift your focus. According to David Mihm, citations make-up roughly 25% of the overall local ranking factors.

Why It's Time to Change Your Thinking...

I've mentioned before that it's time to stop chasing links, and for local SEO it's time to stop chasing citations! What do I mean by that? If your whole purpose for creating citations is to improve your local rankings, then you are probably relying too much on Google. What would happen if those rankings were to suddenly go away? Instead of viewing the process building your brand in the local ecosystem as a laborious task that needs to get done so that you can rank, then you aren't seeing the big picture.

Each of the citation sites that you're trying to get listed on were created with goals far beyond just helping businesses rank for Google's local results. In most cases, they were created to provide a good customer experience and send potential shoppers to worthy vendors. Each of these sites gets their own traffic, and setting up your business listing on them is another place for potential customers to find you.

Below is a quick example from a fairly low traffic attorney site. In a one month period, they are getting traffic from other websites where their citations also reside.

Local Marketing Sources

It's time to change your mindset and get motivated to start building citations for the right purpose. If you do that, the rankings you long for will come with it. Now, here's how we find and get our business listed in these citations in an organized and speedy fashion at my firm.

Make Sure Your Information (N.A.P.) is Accurate.

Having accurate information that correlates across your website, Google Plus page, and local ecosystem citations is the most important part of building and fixing your businesses citations. Your business Name, Address, and Phone Number (referred to as N.A.P. format) is essential for local rankings. Make sure this information is 100% consistent before moving forward!

Below is an example of the appropriate NAP format for a Law Firm:

The Reeves Law Group 515 S Flower St Los Angeles, CA 90071‎ (213) 271-9318

You will notice that most directories display information like the example above. Some will allow you to add a link to your website, but some will not. In this case, the link is not the important information. The accurate listing of the business in the NAP format is.

We've established that having accurate and consistent listing information is critical, so how do we do it?

The Easy Way May Not Be the Best Way

One easy way to get listed consistently on multiple directories is by using a service like Yext. While that can be a great option, depending on your situation, make sure you know what you are getting into. Yext, for example, will easily publish to dozens directories with the information you submit. Some will start showing instantly, and some will come up within a few days with very little work. But at over $475 a year (yes, annually) for the retail version, you might think twice about it.

If you are not looking to purchase services like Yext...

Here are Three Fundamental Steps to a Great Alternative Approach:

Prepare Your Information

I always like to start by creating a quick Google Doc with the client's NAP information at the top. This allows me to easily copy and paste the fields if I need them while I'm building citations. It also allows me to keep the data consistent across the board. Typically, I ensure my Google Plus page is 100% accurate with my business information, and then copy and paste the information from Google Places. I will also use this same Google Doc for tracking my citation sources in one easy to use place.

Feel free to download this free Local Citation Building Template.

In case you decide not to use the spreadsheet I created, you will see I have fields for some of the most common information that citation sources ask for- including:

Your Name - Your actual name or the name of business owner
Email Address - The Email Address that will be checked by the business
Company Name - The company's exact name as it appears correctly on Google Plus
Address - The company's exact address as it appears correctly on Google Plus
Suite or Floor Number - Only use if there is a Suite or Floor number
City - The company's exact city name as it appears correctly on Google Plus
State- The state the company resides in
Zip - The zip code of the company
Phone Number - The LOCAL phone number of the exact business location
Landing Page For Location - The landing page for that office or physical location

I also added some advanced fields that I also see on some submission sites. Here are some examples:

800 Number - The 800 Number of the Business
Logo URL - The URL of the company's logo hosted on your website
Facebook URL - The Facebook URL of the company
Twitter Handle - The company's Twitter Handle
Places Page Link - A Link to their G+ Local Page or Google Places Page

**Below is an example of the header from my Local Citation Building Template.

The Citation Building Spreadsheet NAP Information

Citation Building Can Be a Bit Tedious, So Here's an Easier Way...

Typing can be a bit tedious

If you're like me and you have the attention span of a lemming, then you need some reinforcements. But when dealing with something that's so important, how do you prevent data corruption and ensure accuracy at the same time?

My answer is Roboform and it costs between $9.95 and $39.95. To be clear I am not affiliated in any way shape or form, it's just the program that I found works best for me. So, I will share how I use it.

Roboform allows me to input the information about a location and have it autofill on many of the submission sites. It's not perfect and it requires a manual review, but spending a couple of minutes setting this up is worth its weight in gold. Not only will it ensure it outputs what you put into it, but it will also store the information and you can share the data with your team. It will also integrate into your browser where you can use a drop down and select the auto fill information you want. Basically it just saves a ton of time.

How to use Roboform for Citation Building

Once you've downloaded the program from Roboform.com and installed it, you can open it up and go to File > New > Identity to create a new identity. You will end up creating and naming a new Identity for each different business location you have. You can then click the edit button and spend a few minutes and fill out all of the information you want to your heart's desire. If you're just building citations through Roboform, then you can stick to the Person, Business and Address sections and only fill out the fields I have listed in my spreadsheet.

Start off with the Person section and fill out the following fields that are circled below including:

First Name - The first name you want to display on the listing. Typically, it is the same as the person registering the account.
Last Name - The last name you want to display on the listing. Typically, it is the same as the person registering the account.
Phone - The Business Phone Number for that location (Your NAP)
Email - The mail address that is going to register the account and be the contact email. Use this if they're going to be the same email.

Roboform Person Fields You Need To Fill Out

Next Move On To the Business Section

On this page, I typically only use the company name and website. The company name will be the actual company name in your NAP format and the website will be the landing page of that physical location. Sometimes these are truncated to just the domain, but it's always better to try and get the link you receive to go to the actual landing page for that location.

Roboform Business Category Field To Use

Lastly, You Can Move onto the Address Section In this section you will add your address from the NAP format.

Using the address section in Roboform

And that takes care of that part!

Now you are setup to start finding citations and knocking them out! We will use Roboform to auto fill the fields instead of typing them each time. They will still require manual review but it will save a lot of time!

Now, Let's Get Listed on Some Local Directories, AKA: Build Some Citations

The goal of doing all of this citation is work is to make sure we end up with good data. Check it to make sure you're not already listed before you add your listing to each of these websites. Spamming the web is not cool; even if it is unintentional. So follow this quick three step process called CHECK, FIX, ADD.

Check to see if the listing is there
If the listing is there, make sure the NAP is 100% accurate. If not, fix it!
If the listing does not exist, add it

If you are using the free Local Citation Building Template I created, you will see a list where you can easily add the information along with notes about your new citation sources. I highly suggest keeping track of this information. Remember that you're not just doing this to impress the search engines. You want to have access to this information in the future. What if you decide to move one day and didn't have this?

A Screenshot from the spreadsheet:

A screenshot from my free citation building spreadsheet

At my company, I also give this information to our clients in the unlikely case that they felt we were doing a bad job and wanted to fire us.

Make Sure You Have the Top Citations

Whether your business is brand new or old and established, I suggest you start off by adding a new listing or correcting your incorrect listing at the Top Citation Sources suggested by Getlisted.org. They worked hard to put together this list of citation sources they believe carry the most weight in different industries and geographic areas. They provide two great resources to act as a starting point:

View the Top Citation Sources by City

View the Top Citation Sources by Category

Just like with every citation source you come across, make sure to add them to your tracking spreadsheet.

Next, Don't Re-Invent The Wheel. Find Your Top Competitors

Do you already know who your top competition is? Check them out and see who ranks consistently for the keywords you want to rank for.

Finding citations a year or two ago was a bit harder than it is today. These days you have some easy and affordable options to see where your competing businesses are listed. In this article I will discuss an easy way using Whitespark's Local Citation Finder and another method for searching for them manually through Google. As with any data collection, I always recommend using multiple sources to ensure greater accuracy.

Method #1: Using Whitespark to find your competitors citations

Start by navigating to the "Your Projects" tab. Click on the projects tab

Step 1: Create a new project. To keep things organized, I will typically create a new project by using the "+ Create new Project" button under the "Your Project" tab. It will ask you for your business Name and Phone Number and hit the Create Project button.

Create a New Project Button in Whitespark

Step 2: Find Citation Sources by Keyword - Use the option to "Search By Keyphrase" and enter the keyword information you want to rank for.

Whitespark Interface for Searching

Step 3: Wait For the Results - After starting the search, wait for a few minutes for it to compile the results. In my experience, it's typically pretty fast. You will also get a confirmation email when the process is complete.

Whitespark Search Results

Step 4: See What Came Out and Start Getting Citations - After it's complete, click back on the your "projects link" to see a list of your projects. Select the pink Citation Sources link to see what results came up for your listing. One of the best things about Whitespark is that they have also compiled site submission URL's in their data.

For some listings, you can easily just click the link "Submit Your Business". You can then just use the RoboForm drop down to autofill the information making citation building simple! You may not want to bring Whitespark home to mom because she's so easy.

Method #2: Conduct a NAP Search in Google

You can also conduct the searches you want in a search engine, and come up with your top competitors. This is also a great way to do it because you can use the compare option to see which competitors have.

To do this, simply pull up Google and enter your competitors NAP information. Below I entered a company name, their address, and phone number that I found from their Google Plus Local page.

Way to search competitors citation sources in google using NAP

With this information, I can now visit each one of these sources, and add my business to the same sources if they allow a submission. You will find some sites do not allow submissions, or are owned by the business themselves. Whitespark has a cool option to mark these as useless which makes their data very clean and accurate.

Be Very Careful If You Outsource Citation Building

If you don't have the time and are considering outsourcing citation building please be careful, and have some serious QA. If your people are not being meticulous with your data, you're going to have a lot of data confusion on your hands, and spend twice the amount of time trying to fix it. On the other hand, some companies like Whitespark offer these services a la carte as well.

Want to Learn More?

If you want to learn more advanced citation building after you have exhausted these resources, I suggest you read my write up of some tips from David Mihm's presentation from Local U Advanced Baltimore. Better yet, if you have a chance make sure you attend the next Local U Advanced session.

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Seth's Blog : "One of us is wrong...

"One of us is wrong...

and it's not me."

That's the way every single conflict begins. Of course it does, because if it didn't, it wouldn't be a conflict, would it?

So, given that the other person is sure you're wrong, what are you going to do about it? Pointing out that they're wrong doesn't help, because now you've said the second thing in a row that your partner/customer/prospect/adversary doesn't believe is true.

The thing that's worth addressing has nothing much to do with the matter at hand, and everything to do with building credibility, attention and respect. Only then do you have a chance to educate and eventually persuade.

We cure disagreements by building a bridge of mutual respect first, a bridge that permits education or dialogue or learning. When you burn that bridge, you've ensured nothing but conflict.

• Email to a friend •

miercuri, 10 aprilie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Brussels Threatens Spain With Fines of 0.1% of GDP
S&P 500 May Fall More Than 40% By Fall Says Chris Martenson in Interview with Lauren Lyster
Fools in Cyprus to Sell Gold, Hike Corporate Taxes to Finance Small Part of Bailout

Brussels Threatens Spain With Fines of 0.1% of GDP

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 11:59 AM PDT

Never mind that Spanish unemployment is 26.6% and youth unemployment exceeds 55%. The nannycrats wants Spain to hike taxes even more to make up for budget shortfalls.

Hiking taxes and levying fines in a severe depression is of course sheer idiocy, nonetheless, Brussels issued a new warning to Spain for serious imbalance risks, threatening Spain with fines of 0.1% of GDP.

Via Mish-modified Google translate from El Economista.

The European Commission launched a new warning to the country for "serious risks" to economic imbalances. Spain needs to submit a corrective action plan to Brussels on the 26th of this month. Brussels wants Spain to raise the VAT (limit use of a reduced rate for some items), raise fuel taxes, and continue labor reforms.

If Brussels considers Spain's reforms insufficient, it will consider taking sanctions in late May, according to sources. The excessive imbalances procedure provides for fines of up to 0.1% of GDP (1 billion euros in the case of Spain) for countries that do not follow the recommendations of EU economic policy.

The preliminary report published last November, Spain exceeded the maximum thresholds in 6 of the 11 indicators used to detect economic risks Brussels. Only Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus, all rescued countries, have many risk indicators such as Spain, while Greece exceeds the thresholds in 5 cases.

What worries the EU executive of Spain is the continued rise in unemployment, the average rate in the past three years is now at 19.9% (versus 10% threshold considered healthy).

The other indicators in which Spain exceeds the risk threshold are loss of export market share (-7.6% vs. 6%), private debt (218% of GDP, compared to a limit of 160% ), public debt (69% versus 60%) and the net international investment position (-91.7% of GDP, compared to up to 35%).

Amazing Arrogance and Idiocy

Brussels is supposedly concerned about rising Spanish unemployment. Yet the nannycrats in Brussels demand actions from Spain guaranteed to make unemployment worse. This is amazing arrogance as well as amazing idiocy.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

S&P 500 May Fall More Than 40% By Fall Says Chris Martenson in Interview with Lauren Lyster

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 10:59 AM PDT

In another interview from the Wine Country Conference, Chris Martenson says S&P 500 May Fall More Than 40% By Fall.

Even though the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average are hovering at all-time highs, Chris Martenson, author of PeakProsperity.com and the "Crash Course" Series, is forecasting a major market correction.

Martenson predicts the S&P could fall 40% to 60% to the 600-800 level by this fall. His last major market call was in March 2008, before the financial crisis.

The Daily Ticker's Lauren Lyster sat down with Martenson at the 2013 Wine Country Conference in support of Les Turner ALS Foundation to get his market and economic predictions.

"I see recessionary signs all over the landscape. In particular, Europe is already in recession [and] Japan is already in recession," he says. "We are looking at global economic slowdown."

As for corporate earnings, a stronger U.S. dollar could bring down profits this year, Martenson believes. Corporate profits currently account for 11% of GDP, which is way outside the norm of 6% of U.S. growth. He's also bearish on the U.S. economy and sees weakness in sectors that have shown improvement like the housing market.

"Fundamentally there always has to be some connection between where markets actually are and their price," Martenson says. He believes the Fed's monetary policy has reached a point of diminishing returns and could result in "a pretty significant" market pullback.

Click on the first link at the top for a video interview.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Fools in Cyprus to Sell Gold, Hike Corporate Taxes to Finance Small Part of Bailout

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 09:49 AM PDT

Whether out of complete stupidity or pressure from the IMF or Brussels (I suspect all three) Cyprus to sell around 400 mln euros worth of gold to partially fund its bailout.

Cyprus has agreed to sell excess gold reserves to raise around 400 million euros and help finance its part of its bailout, an assessment of Cypriot financing needs prepared by the European Commission showed.

The draft assessment, obtained by Reuters, also said that Cyprus would raise 10.6 billion euros from the winding down of Laiki Bank and the losses imposed on junior bondholders and the deposit-for-equity swap for uninsured deposits in the Bank of Cyprus.

Nicosia would get a further 600 million euros over 3 years from raising the corporate income tax rate and the capital gains tax rate.

Out of the total Cypriot financing needs of 23 billion euros between the second quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2016, the euro zone bailout fund will provide 9 billion euros, the International Monetary Fund 1 billion and Cyprus itself will generate 13 billion, the assessment said.

Road to Hyperinflation

Raising taxes in the middle of a recession is bad enough. Cyprus actually needs a lower tax rate to attract business following its banking debacle.

Selling gold is downright idiotic. Gold backing can prevent a currency from going completely worthless. Should Cyprus leave the eurozone, its small holding of gold would at least put some bid on its currency.

Selling of gold and hiking of corporate taxes puts another noose through the nose of Cyprus (just what the nannycrats in Brussels wants and precisely what the average Cypriot should fear).

A Greek-like implosion with massive unemployment and endless recessions is on the way.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

joi, 11 aprilie 2013

This is a critical moment

Finding and Building Citations Like an Agency