Local Advice on Free Online Marketing With Google

Here are some simple tips to make better use of Google and its ever growing list of no-cost services.

Google Images courtesy: forovecindadgrafica.com, motoricerca.ne and logoogle.com

(MCMINNVILLE) - If you're in business, you owe it to yourself to spend a few minutes with the latest Google products. A little time today could yield plenty of free advertising for your company.

There are three things you should do today... all free, and all worth your energy:

1. Submit your website 2. Verify your business listing 3. Create a Google coupon

Submitting your website.

Check to make sure your business website is listed correctly. The easiest way to do this is to google your full business name. Unless you are in a very competitive field where your business name is not unique, you should be listed on the first page of results.

Read the descriptive text below your domain. Is this description correct? If it is not the correct description, or your site is not listed, you'll want to update your site's META tags, and resubmit (or submit for the first time) your site.

There are two primary META tags you'll need to check at this point; title and description. You can easily check these tags by opening your site in a web browser, then looking at the source code. (In Explorer, click the View menu, and then “Source.”) Near the top of the page, you should see some code for the pages title. Look for the text between the code "".

This title is what Google pulls from to create the name of your site. You should keep this title to about 50 characters or less. Your code should also list a site description. Look for the code, "

At this point you may be asking, "What about keywords?" These are indeed quite important, but not critical to today's topic. Besides, keywords require a lot more time to discuss.

Okay, once you have your title and description fixed (your web administrator or software application should allow you to update this easily), it's time to submit your website to Google.

Open Google.com in your browser, and scroll to the bottom of the page. Click on the "About Google" link. Under the "For Site Owners" heading, click the link "Submit your content to Google". . . then "Add your URL to Google's index."

Follow the directions on this page. Most site owners will want to copy their site description text into the comments field.

Your site is then submitted. Be patient, as Google may take a few weeks to update the listing.

Verify your business listing.

If you haven't already done so, you should create a Google account (click the "Sign In" link on the google home page to get started). Once you've created an account, sign in and go to the "My Account" administration page.

Under the "Try something new" category, click "more", and then click "Local." You're now in the Google Maps site, which you can get to without creating an account, but you'll need an account for creating coupons anyway. Click the "Add/Edit Your Business" link and follow the directions.

Creating Google coupons

This is one of Google's newest products, and I have to admit, it does seem like Google is trying to take over the internet with all their offerings. But oh well, if the eyeballs are there, and the price is right, it can't be ignored. For now at least, Google is offering to post coupons for free, so I think it's a no-brainer for most businesses.

After you've logged in to Google's local business center, click the coupons tab at the top of the page. Follow the simple directions, and "within a few minutes" you coupon should show up with your Google Maps business listing. I added one a couple hours ago and haven't seen it posted yet, so maybe a little extra patience is called for.

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As the award winning creative director for Gearbox Studios, Adam Trickey has been instrumental in the creation of new media campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and small businesses across the country. You can reach him by e-mail at info@gearboxstudios.com. Gearbox Studios is located in McMinnville, at the heart of Oregon's wine country.