Google has unleashed a Local Business Referrals program to tighten its stranglehold on Internet yellow pages (IYP) companies such as YellowPages.com.

To improve its local results, Google is paying Business Referral Representatives to canvas local businesses to collect information, such as hours of operation, and take digital photos of the establishments. The representatives get up to $10 (U.S.) for each approved and verified referral. You can sign up here.

Google tells candidates: “…you’ll be helping the businesses you refer attract new customers while also making it easier for people in your community to find the products and services they’re searching for.”

Long-established directories that have been struggling to stay relevant in the rapidly progressing search engine industry may see the already significant gaps widen. Late last year, comScore reported Google garnered 29.8 per cent of local searches by U.S. Internet users compared to just 3.9 per cent by YellowPages.com.

While competitors and Internet marketers will be studying Google’s Local Business Referral Referrals program closely, one thing’s for sure: the pace of the IYP/local search race is heating up and the offerings are going to get better.

Advantage: consumers, local businesses and, of course, advertisers.

While more business owners are recognizing the benefits of hiring professionals to compose copy for websites, confusion remains on what the following three types of writers can deliver. Here’s a brief breakdown:

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Google will soon be introducing a new ‘unavailable_after’ meta tag to allow web masters to advise Google when a particular page will no longer be available for crawling.

For example, if you have a promotion on your website that expires on a specific date, you could use the unavailable_after tag to tell Google when to stop indexing it. The new Google tags are designed to help maintain relevant, up-to-date listings, especially for sites like eBay, so closed auction pages are eliminated from search results.

Clever business types recognize the fact that it takes less time, effort and money to retain customers rather than finding new ones. The same goes for website traffic.

Here are two strategies to keep visitors coming back for more, which establishes relationships and builds loyalty:

1. Offer a free tool or service on your website. This will keep visitors coming back, and when they’re ready to invest, you’ll be top of mind.

2. Build an e-mail list. By turning your visitors into newsletter subscribers, you’ll maintain contact and be able to highlight certain aspects of your website or business with every mail-out.

While it’s important to reach new visitors, never overlook opportunities to hold on to your existing website traffic.

A Melbourne start-up claiming it will soon unleash the Web’s first “true real-time search engine” has grabbed the attention of search engine giant Google.

Slated for release at the end of June, the online tool will give users the power to scope the entire Web “live to the second,” explains MyLiveSearch’s co-creator and software developer Rob Gabriel, 35.

The outcome? He claims better, more relevant results.

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Millions of websites attempt to seduce Google and its competitors to score high search engine rankings. But what is the best path to this lucrative romance?

While there are more than a few website promotion tactics, you have two primary means to establish a relationship: court Google and other search engines with alluring web content; or simply pay to get lucky.

Pay Per Click Campaigns

This popular search engine marketing tactic can get you substantial presence in just hours or days. However, after you clear the floor of fraudulent clicks (from competitors eating up your marketing budget) and tire kickers, you might end up with less-than-anticipated conversions, if any at all.

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With the rapid expansion of the digital economy, the web site is conceivably the most powerful marketing and sales tool you can employ.

Yet, despite the highly competitive, global business climate, many businesses have yet to take advantage of this popular technology.

Consider these facts:

• There are more than 1,022,800,000 Internet users worldwide. The U.S. has the highest number of Internet users in the world with 205,300,000-plus ‘surfers’, equating to 68.6% of the country’s population. (Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/)
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