On June 2nd 2011, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo announced and started schema.org; “a resource for site owners and developers to learn about structured data and gain insight into how to improve their sites’ search results.” (Techcrunch) They achieve this through using “Microdata”. So…
WHAT IS MICRODATA?
There are a lot of geeky definitions for “Microdata” and the average person will not understand what it is. If you want a more advanced description with code samples, you can see it here. We want to give a more basic definition.
In the late 90s, submitting your site to a search engine meant entering your site URL into the search engines where your site would then be crawled and indexed. Nowadays things are quite different. Each search engine has its own “Webmaster Tools” section where they ask you to create and submit a dynamic sitemap telling them exactly what content you have on your site and how important it is.
There are a few ways to advertise on Google. The effectiveness really depends on the business model and products/services offered. PPC (Pay per Click) Advertising and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are the most popular methods to market on Google.
There are tons of resources to assist you available online regarding Internet Marketing. Though it may seem overwhelming at first with countless companies claiming to know exactly what it is you need to do to achieve the success that you seek for your business, you may find that many resources online prove to be helpful in assisting you with your internet marketing campaign. In order to get the really helpful tools, it is first necessary to weed through all the jargon. This step may be a lot simpler than you think.
In the late 90s and early 2000, it would be enough to submit a site to Google, Yahoo, MSN but this is simply not the case anymore. Now, to be at all relevant on Google, you must have a search friendly site and a dynamic sitemap. Google adds and updates new sites to its index each time they crawl the web so you are definitely invited to submit your URL to Google but it can’t stop there. Yes, Google may add you to their index but there is no promise made by Google that all URL’s will be indexed and there are no guarantees about when or if your URL will ever appear.
Search Engine Optimization is the process of utilizing search engine marketing to promote a website resulting in highly visible organic listings on major search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing. Generally speaking, the more frequently and higher a site appears in the search results, the more visitors the site will receive via the search engine. There are 2 effectively utilized forms of search engine marketing: Organic Listings and Pay per Click (PPC). Pay per click is an advertising model used on many search engines where advertisers pay the search engine when the ad is clicked and for prime positioning on the search engine site. If you take a look at Google, you may notice that there are a few listings posted on the side of the search results and there may even be listings in a shaded color at the top of the search page. These are the PPC listings which are usually sponsored ads.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s visibility on a search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) through organic search. The higher on the page and the more frequently a site appears in a search engines search results, the more visitors the site will receive from the search engines. The 2 notable forms of marketing are SEO or Pay per Click (PPC) listings. SEO listings are organic (natural) and represent the 10 most relevant web pages as rated by Google for the keyword being searched. The listings are considered organic because no money is paid to the search engines for the placement or frequency of these listings. The placement and frequency is achieved solely through successful SEO.
Maintaining a good reputation can be a challenge for some businesses especially with the widespread use of the internet. People used to rely on people they know to give them advice about which company to hire or support. Those days seem so far away. Today, people depend on the advice of strangers even more so than the people they know. Cyberspace is filled with a plethora of sites and communities that are geared towards giving others a firsthand account of how a business operates. Without online reputation monitoring, your company could be at the mercy of anyone.
Did you know that you can perform a non tweet or non-person search on Twitter? Although most people turn to Google when they first think to search, you can search for just about anything while on Twitter.
Social Media and blogging are two ways to help drive your 
Not sure if you’re aware of this but you’re likely on Google. Not only are you on Google, but so is your reputation. How do you feel about that? How comforting is it to know that at any given moment your business name can be typed in and in one click deals can be made and deals can be broken. Frightening, isn’t it? Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe you’ve tracked your reputation through the each medium and have found that it is stellar. Every reviewer offered you 5 stars and there is not one complaint. You’re visible on every reputable medium, there is nothing less than satisfaction and evidence proves that everybody’s happy. If this is that case, keep up with your strategy, you’re in great shape.
Have you monitored your reviews today? Have you checked to see what the complaining customer at your restaurant last night told the world about your business via Yelp or Google? Have you contacted that customer to right whatever wrong they assumed you were responsible for? No? Well this could be a problem.