Tom Pimental : Web Creative

Now when you create a location-based page for your local business, users can “check-in” when they are there further exposing your business to their network. You can even buy ads based on “Places”. Small businesses should try to allocate at least some of their day to fostering these types of programs. They’re very low maintenance and have a big potential upside given the size of Facebook’s network. Facebook Places is another great tool for small business marketers.

Google has been really focused on the under-served SMB market creating both easy-to-use promotional tools, but also offering services like corporate Gmail and Google Apps to help small businesses focus on their work and not how to do their work. That’s why it makes a lot of sense for them to launch a Google Small Business Blog.

There’s not a lot there now, but I expect Google to highlight products and enhancements that can help your small business grow. This is definitely a site every small business owner should add to their reading list.

Google continues to help small local businesses reach their customers. Their enhancements and continued expansion of Google Places significantly increases the potential exposure of local businesses. Now, with Google Tags, they’ve made it easy for small businesses to add specials, coupons and other advertisements to Goolge Maps and local search results.

With Google Tags, you can maintain weekly specials or do “real-time” coupons all for $25 per month. Add this tothe free promotion offered by Google Places and this gives small businesses an incredibly powerful and cost effective tool to find new customers.

As I’ve stated here several times before there are good and bad SEO practices. The good people at Datadial have put together an infographic that highlights SEO best practices and the “blackhat” techniques you should avoid at all costs.

Click the image below to see the full graphic.

So in case you couldn’t tell by the last 4 posts, I was pretty busy in March/April. In addition to launching 4 new sites, I also found a new job. Leaving IDG was difficult—5+ years of history and an incredible group of people made the decision to leave very difficult, but I was ready for a change of scenery (and business model).

Care.com is a 4 year-old startup based in Waltham, MA that’s taking the care needs world by storm :). Whether looking for a baby sitter, pet sitter, elderly care or a housekeeper (and more), Care.com can really help. I’ve already used the site to find a housekeeper to come in twice a month and help around the house. They’re much more affordable than you think!

Hancock Builders was one of my first clients and I’m proud to say we’re still working together.

The most recent update was entirely focused on conversion. Converting customers, whether organic or search engine driven, is priority number one for any business and Hancock was ready to embrace the compromises required to take this step. Focusing on Hancock’s services and past work was key to leverage the SEO and conversion efforts with a useful and informational website.

The new site launched in late April and has already seen an up-tick in quote requests, which should increase now that the new site has launched.

Jessica Doherty likes to redesign her website almost as much as I do. This latest release puts her on her 4th custom design. While Jess primarily drove the design this time around, we added some interesting new features including music, a slideshow gallery and a reorganized gallery structure which now includes a very cool “Trash the Dress” section where women revisit their wedding gowns in odd and interesting places.

We actually removed WordPress from the new site, because Jess wasn’t updating it often enough. However, we did focus on some basic SEO features including better title and description tags, breadcrumbs and a sitemap.

Jess is happy with the site, but don’t be surprised if I announce another redesign within the next 12 months.

Another day, another launch :)

Well, technically, McGourty launched back in early April 2010. McGourty Company was new to the web and needed to stake a claim. We focused on a clean design with basic SEO (search engine optimization) elements that would help surface the 20+ year-old general contractor in local search results.

We focused on highlighting McGourty’s services and past work through an interactive photo gallery. The site includes a custom “Request a Quote” form with strong calls to action throughout the site to drive people to contact the company.

I technically launched NikkiDevaux.com back in March, but haven’t had a chance to comment on it. Nikki is a Realtor based in Massachusetts who had a website through a company offering templated sites to real estate professionals. For Nikki, the site lacked originality and did not offer her the flexibility she was looking for. We identified WordPress as an excellent base for her new site, sprinkled on a solid custom template and even threw in a blog, newsletter, contact form and full MLS search.

Nikki is extremely happy with her new site and blogs regularly. She even has the ability to edit her sidebar “Concierge” section where she highlights other professionals she trusts.

Once again, Google confirms they do not use the keywords meta tag. They also reinforce the fact that if you write good/useful (read: not keyword injected) description meta tags, they will use it in search results.