In the first part of Google Places Optimisation I covered keyword choice and strategy in detail. In this final part I’m going to address 4 specific things you can do to help boost your places listing in the rankings.

Make your listing complete

Of course this assumes you already have a listing. You may find even if you haven’t set one up in Google there is one there already (as it pulls data from other places like yellow pages). If that is the case then visit Google Places and find your listing and ‘claim’ it.

Google likes to see a listing that is complete. This means that any time Google asks for some information then provide it (absolutely every field). Here is a screenshot of a complete listing for our wedding videos case study.

This is a 'complete' places listing - Click on the image to see a bigger picture of it.

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Evernote has a very fitting logo. An Elephant never forgets

In my last article in this productivity series I talked about DropBox and how some of these new cloud technologies not only solve the problem that traditional software solves but also 1 or 2 more things at the same time.

This week we are looking at Evernote, which is very much in the same boat in terms of it being a great tool for taking notes but also a lot more.

Taking notes is part of every business person’s daily routine. Some people use hardcopy, some use software. Some rely on their memories.

In the past when you used software you might have used Notepad for general notes, you might have used Microsoft Word for more detailed notes and perhaps Outlook or similar to noting down tasks that you have to complete. And in all cases you might rely on just remembering some things or parts of notes particularly when you are in a different location. i.e. you are at the coffee shop and you think ‘ this would be a great idea for my business’ then when you get back to the office you save the note in Word to action at some time.

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Hi guys welcome to a new category on the blog called ‘Productivity’ where I’m going to introducing you to some of my favourite small business productivity tools. If you have any ideas for posts in this category feel free to comment below and let me know.

We are in very exciting times for technology right now. Technology always used to be a pain in the arse really didn’t it?

It wasn’t about ‘yay I can insert this USB drive and back up all of my stuff’ it was ‘bugger, I forgot to back up my stuff now it’s lost’.

The cloud movement has ushered in a new level of expectation when it comes to technology. People don’t just expect things to work. They expect them to work without thinking about them. They expect IT tools to perform functions that they aren’t primarily using them for! This is a big expectation but a lot of the examples that I am looking at in this new productivity series manage to do just that. They manage to replaces old software by performing functions more effectively while at the same time doing a lot more things – things you don’t have to or want to think about but things that are just as important.

To me DropBox is one of the best examples of this and is one of my favourite cloud based productivity tools for small business.

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Web Control Room shows 1 page with charts from various sources to give you a full picture of your small business performance.

As a small business owner people are always asking me “How’s business”. But I’ve always felt that I don’t really know the answer to this question. To help me and other small business owners answer this question I have built a free tool called Web Control Room but more on that later.

Why don’t I know the answer?

So why don’t I know how my business is going? Well, sure if I log into Xero and click on enough buttons, I can find out how much I have invoiced for the month. But this doesn’t tell the whole story.

For example I get most of my leads through Google, so while my invoicing might be good this month, they won’t be much good next month if my position in Google has dropped. So I would have to log in to a tool to monitor this as well.

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How to build trust and authority online (part 2 of 2)

In part 1 of how to build trust and authority online, I discussed the idea of running a business without advertising. Creating great content, becoming known as the expert in your field by creating a web presence that helps you build trust and authority. Instead of interrupting people who aren’t interested in your services, people come to you because you are the expert!

Sounds good right? But now?

In this post I am going to tell you the number 1 secret I use to build trust and authority online.

But before I do I’m going to fill you in on 5 other ways to build trust and authority online and give you some examples of how I do it in my business. Note these are all ‘online’ things, there are obviously loads of things you can do ‘offline’ that will also build your authority.

1.  Start blogging

I recommend WordPress for blogs

What you are reading right now is an article I have written because I am an active blogger. I have posted over 140 blog posts on my blog A Website Designer (lots more elsewhere).

Blogging has a lot of benefits but from a trust and authority perspective it has enabled me to:

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