Schema for Small Business SEO & Website Optimization

Small businesses are usually local businesses. They face challenges in marketing and optimizing their websites for better exposure in the search engines. Fortunately, with Schema and website optimization, you get your business on “the map” and encourage the search engines to rank your business higher in the results.

In order to take advantage of this website optimization technique, you need to make sure when you implement schema onto a website that your contact information and business’ geographic are correctly listed in your website.

Schema.org provides under the section Local Business a wide range of business categories that you can implement as part of the contact page or the footer on your website. The information you can fill in includes accepted payment types, phone and fax, address, and opening hours.

How Schema Works

Schema markup uses div tags that are not displayed on the live website but they rather have the role to inform the search engines with specific information that applies to the chosen schema markup. Listing your business is the most important step. That will inform the search engines about your business’ physical location. A search engine cannot discover on its own that you have a physical location but by creating your local business listing you can inform your potential clients about.

• your contact information
• your hours
• your location
• distinguishing features of you brand
• services you offer

In order to achieve this goal for website optimization, you need to create a listing with both Bing Places for Business and with Google Places. There are also general listing services such as Yellow Pages and industry specific directories and search engines that are worth registering with.

Improved SEO & Website Optimization

A small business is also targeting a local market. For this reason all your SEO and website optimization efforts should be focused on location. Local small business SEO can be improved by using LocalBusiness Schema Markup in order to help the search engines find you and display information relevant to local searchers, your prospective clients.

This is important because people use the internet more and more in order to find local business information. Data such as emails, phone numbers, addresses, business names, and logos are what the prospective clients are expecting to find online. Search engines can easily display all these data if you use the schema markup code to signal them.

Search engines support several marking up formats such as Microdata format, RDFa, and Microformats. In order to work with schema markup you need some basic knowledge of HTML. Depending on your setup, you have to insert some code on your website. Schema markup can be inserted on in line with the existing HTML code on your web pages by using span and div tags. This way you can markup your content like firm name, address and phone number.

Whether you handle your web marketing in-house or work with a website optimization company, schema markup will not be visible to your website visitors but search engines will use it in order to index, retrieve, and display this information to users that make relevant queries. This way you will improve your local small business SEO and website optimization efforts.

For better SERP results it is also important to use location specific keywords and title tags that are location specific. This will improve your search engines results page and will increase the probability that your prospective clients find your small business online.

Determining if IT Consulting Services are Right for Your Small Business

Today, most businesses cannot function without technology. Because of the dependence businesses have on technology, the use of information technology (IT) consulting services is valued option for many companies.

A small business can varying needs, and a consultant can help them learn and adapt. This article is intended to help shape your decision as to whether or not IT consulting are right for your small business.

The Potential Risks & Threats with Technology

Especially in the first year of a small business, in the technical department, things can go wrong. Computer glitches can be frustrating and sometimes challenging to troubleshoot internally.

Having an IT expert on hand who knows how things work can be crucial during these moments. In the past, technology has taken businesses on new horizons and now, things are very different. The ability to troubleshoot certain computer issues has advanced signifcantly.

Assess Your IT Needs With a Consultant

After hiring an IT consultant, the person can help you have a perspective on the program, servers and hardware that you should use for accomplishing your business goals. The budget is also considered, because you can only buy equipment according to your budget. Experienced professionals can have knowledge regarding the best methods of helping your fulfill your plans.

An IT consulting professional can provide quicker, better and cheaper solutions for making you succeed and you can save cash and time. You could make wise decisions that could help you to spend reasonably and not exaggerate. Choosing the wrong products that will not help you can be avoided.

This can be possible because IT consulting providers know all the new technologies and products and they know which ones to choose so they suit your work. If one specialist can do so much good to a small firm, you can imagine how a team of professionals can help. In this case, you will only have to pay for services, so you will not have to be concerned about the salary or training.

An IT consulting firm is much more flexible than a single individual. Also, being a partner with a reputed firm gives you access to various promotions and discounts. Additionally, such firms are also more adept in helping with more unique services such as virus removal and computer repair services.

Can an IT Consultant Make Your Business More Efficient?

Time is precious in a small business and if you use reliable IT services, you and your employees can focus more on your regular tasks, as the tech department is secured. Downtime and number of glitches can decrease. You will have more peace of mind and feel free to grow your business.

Until know, you have seen the benefits of using IT consulting for your small business, but it can also be a tricky thing. You have to be sure the individual or team you hire have a good reputation. You surely do not want to fire them and hire new people just to repair what the others damaged.

The ideal candidate must have the right attitude: the one that will help your establishment for years to come. A professional with experience could do it. You do not want someone who can work superficially and offer you a solution for the present and in the future to ruin everything.

A good consultant will want to grow when the business grows. If your business has more than twenty five employees, hiring a team of specialists in IT consulting is the right thing to do.

For more information on IT consulting, contact the experts at Facet Technologies, Inc. for insights on service programs and pricing.

Why Google+ is a Must for Small Businesses

 Many entrepreneurs are inquisitive to know whether Google+ can help them. Some of them feel already successful after using Twitter and Facebook hence they don’t see the need for a third social platform. The failures experienced while using Google in the past is among the reasons business owners are still raising questions even after the launch of Google+.

Well, the truth is Google is the leading search engine that is now integrating Google+ social activity with Google Search. Although Facebook has made a name as a social networking company, Google is establishing what some people think is an arduous alternative for small businesses. Below are just some of the cues to get you inspired:

• The Social Factors are Huge – Google is devoted to being social since it understands social sites generate greater traffic. You will start to see several integration pages among the search results. This trend of building loyalty in the social sense for those using Google+ can easily gain traction with time. 
• The Inbound Web Traffic is Free – Google has an enormous SEO value. Creating a profile on Google+ will give you an inbound link to the site represented by the page. This will even work better when you connect your website with your page on Google+.
• The Creative Process is Simple – Creating pages on Google+ is easy. Although not mandatory, it is essential to have an image, avatar or logo that represents your own brand when creating a page. It's also wise to write a solid "About" section that describes what your small business does

You may be asking what you need to do in using the Google+ pages for the success of your business. Here are three main ideas to help you:

1. Build devoted and loyal traffic: Share on your pages in social media platforms that you have a new business page on Google+ and invite your friends to circle you and get updates. You can also mail your clients inviting them to get to Google+ and circle you. You can segment your followers using the circles on Google+.

2. Collaborate with others: While on Google+ page, it is possible to send links, updates and photos as well as work in conjunction with other users on this site. Other people will be required to circle your own page so as to let you comment on the thread updates. As you keep engaging in these ways, other users will include you to their own circles hence resulting to greater brand awareness.

3. Host a live video chat ("Hangout"): This feature is what makes Google an exceptional social network. The best way to work with your target market is to host a hangout then invite clients to join in. The point is to listen rather than be heard and provide helpful feedback to the users on the hangout. A few ideas can inspire you in selecting the hangout topic. These include:

• Latest product previews hangout.
• A hangout on the relevant tools of trade.
• News and other industrial happenings hangout.
• Questions answered for new customer hangout.
• Consumer appreciation hangout.

Is your small business using Google+ yet? If not, we highly suggest getting on board soon. You business can be a local authority figure in search, so long as you optimize your Google+ page and share quality content the attracts in-market customers. To learn how to optimize your web presence on Google+ and other online channels, stay in tune with the Righteous Business Blog.

Ways Online Press Releases Help Small Business Websites

Press releases are a great way to get the word out. It is used in practically any context that needs to be made public. Press releases are powerful marketing tools, and although people have varied opinions about its efficacy, it is still a primary and major means of making potential customers aware of what you have to offer.

In the age of the internet, the inherent benefits of a press release are even more palpable. For small businesses, press releases provide opportunities for growth and success without spending too much. Here are some ways that a press release on the web can help you build your business.

Online press releases enhance website traffic. In fact, increasing the number of visitors to your website is a goal easily achieved by a press release provided you include a link to your website. As online press releases are picked up by many websites, interested visitors can simply click on your link and drive traffic towards your site with just a single press release. Now, that's what you call efficient.

A stand-out press release gives your website credibility, a quality often remembered by potential customers. By stand-out, we mean a well written, thoroughly researched press release that includes accurate information about the subject. This helps you build a good reputation among customers and consequently, become known as an expert in your field.

An online press release costs a relatively small amount considering it has the potential to reach a great number of people. There are many sites that offer free distribution services and it pays to take advantage of this privilege. Even for those that offer exposure for a specified amount, these fees are affordable and certainly worth its price. The contents of your press release should, of course, focus on what your company offers but along with this, anything newsworthy that would benefit your customers, be it new products, contests, new websites and other such information are good topics. All these benefit your business in the short or long term and helps spread the word about your business.

Widespread online presence is a formidable advantage and a press release will you establish that. Even if you have a desirable product but lacks exposure, your efforts will come to naught. Getting the word out may be all you need to succeed. To achieve this, a well written press release is necessary as well as the sites where you publish it.

To maximize the potential power of a press release, search engine rankings should be optimized. This is established with the use of specifically targeted back links to your website. Search engines depend on keywords to rank your website among the top authorities in the field and if you deliver this requirement, a first page or even a top rank listing may be well within your grasp.