Anointed CEO

Well at least that’s the promise of Universal Business Listings.

UBL will list your business  to top online directories and local directories. These includes, all the major Online Yellow Pages, Search Engines, industry directories and 411 directory assistance.

Being listed on those directories is free but I strongly believe in the old adage “Time is Gold” and it’s wise to pay $30 for their submission service than do it by yourself manually.

UBL does not guarantee though that you’ll be immediately listed. Directories has its own schedule of data updates before they include new listing.

There is an annual fee of $18. According to UBL, most directories requires a re-listing the data annually.

Still, this is a great deal I will say.

I wish though that they also submit to some review site like yelp.com and to other smaller industry specific directories.

Great tip from Local Na8ion.

Oh great. I found a podcast from Duct Tape Marketing with Google’s Head of Web Spam Team, Mr. Matt Cutts.

Here’s an excerpt that I like the most:

“…If it’s good for eye ball, it’s probably good for search engines.”

Search engine optimization is less stressful if only most webmasters will follow that advice and stop playing the game.

Go ahead and listen here on how to have a successful search engine marketing campaign.

I got an email from Small Business Trends Editor Anita Campbell to notify me that I won their contest.

They are redesigning their site and logo and asked their readers to give feedback for a chance to win a $399 worth of logo from Logoworks by HP.

Seriously, I didn’t expect to win at all. I can’t remember when the last time I won something from any contest or event was. Helping them to make decision is really my intention as I have a little background and past experience in graphic design. You see, it pays to help someone without waiting something in return.

Thanks Anita, Logoworks, and to the community of Small Business Trends.

I will be using this free logo design service to my Internet Marketing Company, EffiStrat Inc.

As I promised to the Small Business Trends community, I’ll blog my experience with Logoworks and the final logo. I am more than excited to share everything to you guys.

Stay tuned for updates to my new logo.

Choosing the domain name for you business is not difficult if only there’s not much pollution in search engine marketing industry.

There’s a little debate if domain name is a factor in search engine ranking.

The very reason domain name exist, is for people to remember.

It’s easier to remember “yahoo.com” than “69.46.103.131″ isn’t?

With that in mind, here are my advices in choosing the right domain name for your business:

• The domain name must be easily to remember.

• The domain name must be easily to spell.

• Avoid using dash (-) if possible. Use it only once if necessary.

• If your customers are local or national market, use country code top-level domains (ccTLD). Examples are “.us” for United States and “.ca” for Canada. This way, search engines can automatically know your target visitors are.

• Use your business name us domain name.

As you see, those advices are mostly common sense and not complicated. Go ahead and register your domain name to registrar like GoDaddy.

To improve the ranking of your business website on local searches, you have to tell search engines like Google that your website targets local customers.

One basic optimization is to put your business address, including the zip code, and its phone number in your website in text format and not in a picture or image. This makes your information crawlable by search bots.

This tip seems obvious but you’ll be surprised how many small business website I’ve seen have their contact information in the image or inside a flash animation.

It’s best to put your business address and other contact information at the footer of each page of your site. This is on top of the full information at your main “Contact Us” page.

If you like this tip, subscribe to our RSS Feed.

Here’s the video of Matt Cutts, Google’s head of WebSpam team. He gave some tips for small business owners in optimizing their website also some general search engine optimization ideas. This video was taken last quarter of 2007.

Too many small business websites was designed without their target users in mind. I think the web designer is up to please the business owner and had overlooked how the website will actually help the business.

Even worst, most business owners really don’t know what design is good and awful, and yet they call the shot.

Well, It doesn’t matter as long as both parties get what they want.

Poor business owner. Poor web designer.

Confession: That’s my story in my first job as a web designer back in 1999. The time where having a website is considered remarkable for small businesses.

Nine years after, I am still seeing how many business owners are victimized unintentionally by web design firm or consultant.

When will this end?

It will end on this blog. If you’re a business owner or a web designer, I’ll be giving away free information to help you to have a better website for your success. Subscribe to my RSS Feed.