While at the Pubcon online marketing conference last month I listed to a keynote by Jay Baer, author of a book named “Youtility”. Jay says stop trying to sell so much and start trying to be useful and transparent to build trust and business. When you help someone you create a customer relationship and those relationships can pay you back with business over the long run.

Google has a series of 6 videos on the Google Webmaster YouTube channel to help local businesses build an online presence (And they are not just about Google+). If you’re a small business with a local focus you should find some tips that will help you. They are short videos, from 3 to 7 minutes each, so you only need to set aside a few minutes at a time to view each one.

I’ll be presenting “Local Search: How To Get Good Online Reviews” at Pubcon the first week of October. You can download the slides which cover, Why You Want Good Reviews; Do Reviews Affect Rankings?; Is it OK to Ask for Online Reviews?; Tips to Getting Good Online Reviews

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is continuing to roll out a verified customer review feature. The BBB is another review site you might want to consider in your efforts to promote good online reviews if it’s available in your area.

Google has a new web page speed tool for both desktop and mobile devices. So we’ve updated our article about why web page load times are so important along with various site/page speed tools.

I’ll be presenting “Social Media Marketing in Two Hours a Month” at the CT Business Expo at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford on Thursday June 5th

Many small business marketers avoid social media marketing because of the expectation that it will take too much time. However, we’ve seen clients benefit from as little as two hours a month on social media.

In this article on Marketing Land I outline the process we’ve developed with a number of clients over the past few years including some tips on what to post, and what social venues to consider

Many people, even supposed SEO’s , believe that having lots of Facebook likes or Twitter followers affects search rankings on Google.

Hear the answer right from Google’s Matt Cutts in this Video.

Here’s an article on Website Magazine with 21 SEO Myths and Bad Tips.

There have been two recent changes at Google that have the online marketing community questioning if keyword optimization is dead or dying – Now all organic keywords are to be “Not Provided” and Google’s Hummingbird Update.