We all know that LinkedIn is a great networking tool used to get connected with past and present colleagues and classmates. The outlet is often referred to as “Facebook for professionals” because business leaders can power their career and obtain inside connections for job searches or new business ventures as well as having the ability to share and obtain advice from other industry leading experts.

What most professionals fail to recognize, however, is that you are 40 times more likely to turn up in search results if your profile is a 100% complete. Having a 100% completed profile is easy, with a few basic additions to your profile:

•    Upload a Photo
•    Add Current Position
•    Add Past Positions (2)
•    Include Education
•    Provide a Profile Summary
•    Describe Specialties
•    Get Recommended (3)

Once you have a completed profile, you may also want to continue searching for contacts within your network and become more involved in groups and associations. Updating status updates and integrating web based applications adds greater value to your profile. The more activity you present as a professional employee of your company, the better you and your company appears, since after all, your company profile on LinkedIn is comprised of all employee statistics.

Another helpful tip, from an SEO perspective, is optimizing your website listings on your profile for the keyword you wish to rank for in search engines. To do so, “Edit” your website and select “Other.”

For “Website Title” include the title of your website, category or keyword you wish to rank for. From there, simply enter your URL string.

It’s that simple! Now get out there and stir up some industry leading conversation.

Due to the ever evolving world of technology, people are looking to the internet to find business recommendations locally. Businesses that appear in the local search results are found on several online business listings. Submitting your business online can help with your companies search engine optimization. So don’t wait to be found! Submit your business information to get listed on some of the free directories including:

Google Places

As the number one search engine, it’s critical that your business has a local search page. In doing so, your business can be found and you can physically verify your information. Google also allows your business to stand out among the crowd. You can make the public aware of what types of products and services you offer and upload photos, videos, current offerings and more. The best part? You can get insightful information about your listing and make sure you’re making wise businesses decisions moving forward.

Bing Local

Bing Local allows your business to appear in the results when users are looking or are near your location. Bing Local gives you the opportunity to improve or update your business listing at any time. If you have more than one business location you can manage those listings as well. A thorough verification process further enables you to protect your account and authorize your changes.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Local listing permits you to customize your business listing by selecting a basic or enhanced profile that is easy to manage. The basic option lets you display your business contact information, store hours along with your products and services and it’s free! With the enhanced feature, you will have everything the basic listing includes in addition to your business logo and tagline, photos, and a detailed business description.

Yelp

Yelp allows every business owner or manager to setup an account to post products and services, hours of operation, offerings, photos and even message their customers. Users can rate and provide comments on your business as well as forward the listing to a friend for more information. You also have access to see who your competitors might be of those viewers who viewed your listing.

Best of the Web Local

Best of the Web Local allows you to provide your business contact information including website and email as well as driving directions, photographs and payment options. BOTW Local Premium offers you more visibility and detailed information that can ultimately drive greater foot traffic to your location.

It’s important to keep in mind there are a slew of other online business listings that must be completed to really make an impact and get your business found.

Of all the inventions in the last 50 years, few have changed the world as much as the Internet.  Destroying mail, books, television and dignity, life has changed much thanks to our electronic friend.  Here are 15 ways, for better or for worse, the Internet has changed marketing.
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On November 9, 2010 Google launched its new Instant Search option allowing Google users to preview a site before deciding to click on it. There has been a lot of speculation on how this will affect Internet Marketers. Being a Pay Per Click (PPC) specialist myself, it got me thinking. If you’re familiar with ProspectMX and our PPC services, it would be no surprise to you when I say that PPC is a highly effective tool for most clients. It has the ability to generate instant targeted traffic to your site from users who are actually looking for your service. And, since you’re only paying for the traffic that actually ends up on your site, your ad can display as many times as your budget would allow.

How has Google Instant changed the way we view search results?

With the introduction of Google Instant, there have been subtle changes in the PPC world. When someone searches using Google Instant, it opens up a drop down preview box with all the possible suggestions. During the initial launch there were many downsides to this. For example, once the preview was opened, sponsored links in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place were obscured behind the preview, hiding it from a potentially interested user. Furthermore, the search results and ads changed as the user typed in lengthy long tail keywords. For example, if I’m searching for “paint ball locations in New York” Google search will display ads for “paint” as soon as the word is typed in and then change accordingly as the user entered the rest. Due to this, your ads were potentially displaying for keywords that have no relevance to your campaign.

Since the launch of Google Instant, Google has been very busy tweaking the system to make it more amicable to PPC clients. Google has fixed the glitch of the overlapping preview box so that now when you type in a keyword, all the search results move down in full view as well. Google has also stated that unless the users stay on the page for more 5 seconds or the user clicks on search or presses enter, the impression will not count. Considering that most users complete searches in mere seconds, this eliminates the initial concern of having unwanted impressions in your campaign.

How has this affected Pay Per Click?

Even though initially it seemed that Instant was rather detrimental to PPC clients, it seems that things have turned around. With the changes Google has made since the launch it’s my opinion that Google Instant may actually help PPC clients in the long run. One of the reasons why is because when a user searches with a particular keyword, the ads that used to get hidden are now the point of attention on the page itself. This allows ads that are in 1st or 2nd spot to have more visibility and drive more traffic to the site. Historically, the 1st or 2nd spot for any keyword were not that coveted, however with Google Instant, this may change.

My opinion is to run your PPC campaigns as usual. Even though there have been many developments with Google Instant, it’s still in its infancy and I believe there are many more improvements to come. Many PPC campaigns can be optimized to start displaying ads in the 1st or 2nd spot and long tail keywords would need to be carefully monitored to see if there are too many impressions. These suggestions should help you get a better Click thru rate and hopefully conversions as well. In the end, the success of a PPC campaign always depends on the amount of work you put into it.