After 4 months of customers asking me if I had a Google places service, we’ve finally found a great crew that can get the job done, and when I mean “done”, I’m talking “SLOTS A, B or C” (Top 3). Yeah Baby!!!

This means whenever a prospective customer searches for your business in your local area (i.e. “plumbers ipswich”), you’ll RANK in one the top 3 spots of the Places Listings, and if the keywords are chosen correctly (I’ll hl, you’ll get a bucket-load of leads for your business and be a very happy camper

Sorry for the delay kids! Google made some major updates at the end of Nov last year and it took us a bit to get up to speed with what they’re doing and offer a quality service that will actually get results (i.e. HIGH RANKS!).

Cheers, Mark

PS – If you want to get your business ranked at the top 3 for local search, then check out our new google places optimisation service

This video, from one of the most respected guys at Google, is now 2 years old, but these principles still apply today.

PS – for NEW site owners: when he says: “Google usually finds your site in 3 days…” – keep in mind that this means if you type the name of website into Google, you’ll probably get found within this period – this DOESN’T mean you’ll get found for your main keywords in this time. Depending on how competitive your key-phrase is (i.e. at the time of writing, “house painters sydney” returned no less that 77,500 results! Obviously to get your site placing in the top 20 [first 2 pages], is going to take TIME AND WORK. Perhaps many months depending on how busy you are adding content and trying to get links to your site.

Did you know that you can check your business email (and send replies) from the web without having to use your home computer or Outlook?

Great if you’re out on the run To do this – simply:

• goto: http://www.yourwebsiteaddress.com.au/webmail (for example if your web address is www.joesplumbing.com.au it would be: http://www.joesplumbing.com.au/webmail)
• enter your username and password (username will be your full email address e.g. joe@joesplumbing.com.au and your password will have been sent to you when we first setup your email account)
• click “Horde” at the left
• click “login”
• now click “mail” at the menu on the left to see any email
• you can send using this system as well

For more info see video at top right (best viewed by enlarging – after clicking the play button, click again to enlarge)

Ok so you’ve just been sent some details about your new email address (associated with your business website) and you’re not sure how to add the email address to outlook. Just follow these steps or view the video at right (for best viewing, click the enlarge arrows and select HD version):

Note: this applies to the most commonly used email program, outlook 2003 (process should be similar for other versions of outlook)

• Open outlook and go to the “tools” menu and select “email accounts”
• Tick “add new email account”
• Tick “POP3″
• Enter the details we’ve given you in the appropriate fields (NOTE: the username and password fields have to be EXACT or they won’t work – if youre copying and pasting the details make sure you don’t copy in any SPACES)
• NOTE: your “outgoing mail server” will be same as your existing email address (i.e. bigpond, optusnet or whatever internet service provider you’re using) – to find out just click “tools” > “email accounts” > “view or change existing email account” > then click the account, and have a look at what’s in the “outgoing mail server” field – use that info for your new email account
• Click “test account settings” – you should get all green ticks if you’ve got it right