Michael Price MarketUS Scam

Wow, Where does one begin?

Let me start by saying I worked for Michael Price about two years ago for a few months.

And I have been apologizing to myself ever since.

I had my doubts at first. Then those doubts became real. And I left. And to the 4 businesses I sold, I am terribly sorry. But be aware he didn’t pay me for my last sale, so what comes around….

But I will take a moment here, and share that after talking to folks at the GSA, as well as reading the Federal Acquisition Regulations, I’d like to share my thoughts on Michael Price.

Michael Price Lies

Michael Price will lie until the sun goes down. Get drunk, and lie some more.

For Instance…

I can still hear him telling potential clients;

“Once you have a GSA Contract, the word “Bid” will never cross your lips again. What to you get when you bid? A contract right? What if I got you a GSA contract? What do you get when you have a Contract? Now you get sales.”

Which is all fine and dandy, and sure sounds logical, but that is not how it works.

Ask “Brian”

He worked at a security guard company that Micheal Price scammed. He gave that same speech to him. Then Brian went to a meeting and ran into someone he knew who actually had a GSA Contract for security guards. When Brian asked him “So you don’t have to bid, right?” He heard the truth.

They have to bid on every job with the GSA contract. He called me. By then I had left and found that actually, that is in the FAR. Security Guards is a service, and services in the government arena all require a SOW (Statement of Work) and the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) states that any job requiring a SOW needs to go out to bid to everyone who had a contract under security guards.  As of 7/5/16 that would mean 106 security guard companies get to bid on every job that goes out.

Michael Price MarketUS Scam – it gets worse

So I guess the word “Bid” will cross your lips…provided you hire someone else to get you on the GSA….

Now that time has passed, I know 100% that my 4 sales (totaling $38,000 for Michael Price) all were all hung out to dry.

Not a single one got on the GSA. I kinda sensed this, but now that time has passed, and I’ve validated my suspicions, he clearly talks a good game, but once he has your cash, Mike is on another playing field and you don’t have tickets to the game.

But ask “Brian”. When he got an email from the GSA with a lengthy list of things that were wrong on his paperwork, he forwarded the email to Mike Price. What did he get back?

“You’re not a client.”

Seems that the one thing Michael Price relies on is the the GSA takes it’s time. Ask anyone who got on the GSA. It’s about a two year process. But in the Contract with Micheal Price aka Market US it states clearly that the $9-15k he charges is “annual” and unless you prepay another 5K for a second year, you only have him for 12 months to the day. Now say it takes 2-3 months for him to get everything he needs from you to submit it to the GSA. That leaves 9 months for the GSA to get to you.

And they are running well past a year in many of the categories. the ones I can confirm? 

• Flooring
• Security Guards
• Medical Services
• Pre-fabricated Buildings

Well? When you have just 10 days to get something fixed and back to the GSA after they took 13 months to get to you….

You are shit out of luck.

Because you are no longer a client. 

But remember that story he told you about the one contract he had to submit three times? Not for you Brian.

Or ask Randy.

Michael Price told him he would get him a disabled veteran designation along with a GSA contract. All Randy got was the same “Your not a client” email (And after calls to the GSA, it came to light it was submitted improperly and sat for months because of that. It took them 3 weeks to find it after we called).

You read that right. Not only was the paperwork incomplete at best…it wasn’t even submitted properly!

Insult to injury, then he emailed a 75 page PDF on how to apply for Veteran-Owned status.

So that’s not “getting it done for you”. And the GSA contract? 

Nope.

So in closing,

If you get a call from anyone at MarketUS, or the office of Michael Price. Beware.

And if you go to work for him, good luck getting paid.

and for the record, I am currently helping Randy get a SBDV (small business disabled veteran) status.

So if Michael Price won’t let you talk to real references, I have some that would be glad to give you the real story.

Liars, Cheats and Thieves – LinkedIn

TABB Solutions Liars, Cheats and Thieves – LinkedIn

So if you have a LinkedIn account, you’ll likely get invitations to connect from people/companies that have “As Seen On” next to their picture of elsewhere on the profile. Like this fellow.

Wow… I really need to connect with this guy. He has been interviewed or featured as a guest speaker on the major news networks.

WRONG.

You see a lot of social media profiles with logos of major networks and major magazines on them with the words “as seen on” by them.

There are also lots of companies advertising services that allow you to put those logos and “as seen on” on your own marketing materials and social media profiles.

But, if you’ve never really appeared on those networks or actually quoted in those publications, is it ethical to lead people to believe you have been “as seen on”?

This fellow most likely bought a press release package, wrote it up himself, paid his money, and a local news station (like an NBC or ABC affiliate) posted it under press releases.

Like this real Press Release on an NBC affiliate site in Richmond, VA.

So Mark Warner at SpecDive can now put on his LinkedIn profile that he has been “seen” on NBC (trust us, he hasn’t). This is a real press release and I am using it to illustrate a point. These press releases are then “seen on” NBC for instance.

Get it?

NBC News 12 in Richmond Virginia picked up a press release from “SubmitPressRelease123” then distributed by either “SproutNews” or “WorldNow”. Since it was about a firm in Virginia, they posted it, though they also note they have no “connection therewith”.

In other words, NBC has nothing to do with it.

Now see how this works?

• Write a press release
• Upload it to a PR service
• Pay
• Get a report of where it appeared
• You are now “seen on” all those networks and news outlets

Yet this is why you see LinkedIn members fluff out there feathers and lead you to believe they get TV or on news media because of their knowledge on a particular subject, not because they dropped a few hundred on a press release.

Keep in mind, you’ll also see it on webpages as well.

Banners like this on are seen on many make money at home programs, eBooks, and other systems that are being hawked online. They might use any one of the following and many more for their “as seen on” advertisement: The New York Times, Esquire, America Online, CNN, FOX, USA Today, Forbes, MSN, Yahoo!, ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC. All outlets that pick up press releases like the real one above on “News 12 NBC”.

What people assume is that the “make money” item/service that is being sold was featured or talked about on those networks. The advertiser wants you to believe that so that you will think it is legitimate because, after all, only real important things or programs/services are discussed on the major networks, newspapers, and magazines.

They simply do this because it’s an easy way to add credibility where there is none.

Illegal? No.

Unethical? Yes.

If they lie about something like this, can you really trust their product or service?

I think not.

They merely join my list of liars, cheats, and thieves.

 

GSA Contract Scams – Updated with new FEMA Scam

Update to the GSA Contract Scam post from a few months ago. The purpose of this post is to warn business owners of a handful of calling scams, including GSA contract scams, state registration scams, and even a wicked FEMA scam making the rounds lately.

Scam 1: GSA Contract – This is the big scam. Want to become an instant millionaire? Get a GSA Contract! Yes, sign me up! No one got contracts and business owners were fleeced for thousands each. They are still saying they are the experts, the authority, and doing contracts longer than anyone. No, no and hell no.

What to Know: Even if you hook up with a real company and get a GSA contract, the GSA admits that 6 out of 10 businesses don’t make one red cent from having a 5 year GSA Contract. Oh…they never told you that you only have a 40% chance of selling something, anything to the government? Read it here on a GOVERNMENT SITE. These callers never tell you that the businesses that make money with a GSA contract are the ones that do have played in that arena for years that know the rules and play by the rules, and also know the right people inside of government. The ones that don’t make any money (the majority)? They never had a serious contract with any Federal Agency and were told “this is how it’s done”. It’s not. Plan on spending some serious coin and a lot of time marketing to the government to get your first sale. If you thought the $10,000 someone charged you to get a GSA contract is the end of what you’ll be spending…the joke’s on you.

Lesson: If you get a call about a GSA contract, hang up. Virtually everything they tell you is a lie. Ex., “it’s a no bid contract”. Fact: Then it goes against FAR and DFAR, and if you don’t know those are, you shouldn’t even be considering a GSA contract. Fact: Annual government spending through the GSA is about $34 billion against a $4 trillion budget. Now to be fair, The GAO reports that spending on “everyday” products and services (that you’ll find on the GSA schedule) is $600 billion. So the GSA has a wee bit more than 5% of purchases, with 95% on the open market. So explain again why I need a GSA contract to sell to the government?

Scam 2: Register with 50 states. One company calling on of my clients quoted $6000 and “if you qualify you get a “free” GSA Contract”. First up, it’s impossible to register with 50 states. Some have fees to register (which they tack onto the $6000), while others require you to have a “physical location inside the state with at least one 40 hr. a week in state employee for a full calendar year.” As for the GSA, see Scam 1.

What to Know: It sounds good, but state registrations are all very different and tricky, and require access to your company email. Stop and think. How many online registrations have you done where at some point, you need to check your email to “validate and continue”. That happens with all the state registrations, and with many, more than just once during the process.

Lesson: Though it’s very time consuming and even more aggravating than you can imagine, you can register with “almost 50” states, but $6000? Well, that’s a huge rip-off. I do this for a living for businesses. You can get about 10 states done a day. Do you know anyone, other a doctor or attorney, making $6000 a week?

Scam 3: FEMA – Yes, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) does require a registration. It takes about 5-10 minutes to complete and it’s all of (one page).

What to Know: Their website and callers are currently running an aggressive campaign directed at businesses — soliciting these small businesses to their online site to fill out a “FEMA Contract Registration Form”.  Once the form is filled out and submitted on-line, applicants receive the following message: “Thank you for submitting your information. We will be in contact with you shortly. Click below to make a payment of $500.00 for this service.” By clicking on the “Buy Now” button, you’ll be directed to a site to pay $500.00 via a PayPal account for “FEMA Registration.”

The Bigger catch? You need a Cage #. That is accomplished by registering your business with the Federal Government via the System for Award Management (SAM). The bad news is that is yet another registration so they will charge another $500! So that one page FEMA registration just cost you $1000. If you have an active SAM (which issues the CAGE), save the $500, complete the one page form in minutes and e-mail it to FEMA.

Lesson: You only find out about the second $500 after you are out $500. But keep this in mind. Please know that FEMA does not charge any money to register as a vendor to do business with them. 

And neither does any other federal agency, including the GSA (if you are so inclined).

 

 

The Do’s and Don’ts of Changing a Website Domain

October is “Digital Marketing Month” and I will start the month with The Do’s and Don’ts of Changing a Website Domain.

So you’ve had a website for a few years and you keep getting calls and emails about updating your site. You finally bite, maybe even getting a new domain name, since the domain list has vastly expanded from the big four we grew up with (com, biz, edu and gov). Or maybe you’re just changing the business name. Either way, there are tools to make it easier, or it can be an unmitigated disaster.

You really need to know that changing the domain name of your website can have a serious impact on SEO and organic traffic and generally it is not advised from SEO perspective. This is because each domain name is linked with several metrics (trust, authority, etc), characteristics (domain age, GEO location social signals, etc) and above all, the hyperlinks.

In this short post we will explain the primary risk of transferring from an old domain to a new one and describe some details that one should take in order to minimize the losses of search engine traffic. Sadly, if you don’t bring this up, most likely the company you hired looks the other way, and the results can be embarrassing to say the least, and at the most, be outright devastating.

Websites now are much more dynamic than older websites from 5 -10 years ago. Blogs, content marketing, social media and more all have outgoing and incoming links to your website. If those links are not redirected properly by your “new” webmaster, you take a giant leap backwards with your digital footprint. I can’t stress this enough.

I know of a company that had a pretty nice website. They were aggressive with their updates (at least once a week) which were often landing on the first page of Google search returns for pertinent queries (geeky engineering stuff). They also set up several social media platforms and were also diligent in posting each blog post to those sites as well, driving traffic to the website.

(ex). I write a post for my personal webpage blog. As a lifetime psoriasis sufferer I got some relief with a supplement and shared that on my blog. When I am done, I hit a button that says “publish”. Now that page is eventually going to be indexed by Google. Since I know SEO, that post (Astaxanthin and Psoriasis) is number 1 on Google. Ahead of Clinical and Hospital Studies. So that page gets a lot of hits. Every day. If I was a business, it would be invaluable. As it stands now I get emails asking if I am still clearer than before, which I answer every day.

I also posted that out on to Google+ and Facebook and LinkedIn.  Hey, if it helped me, maybe it will help someone else.

BUT…if I moved my blog to another domain two things happen if I don’t do a 301 redirect on every link, POOF. My number 1 spot goes away on Google and those social media posts that when clicked on now have nowhere to go. In one fell swoop, I’ve killed my presence in Google searches and all my posts on social media have broken pictures and dead links.

Well, that’s exactly what happened to this company. The new “web marketing company” never did one single redirect for an existing post page. That’s like stealing. Over 200 search result links on Google vanished. Their social media pages have post after post of grey squares where pictures where and not a single click works on Facebook, Google, Manta, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The net effect is on Google (who has removed the dead links) is they have vanished. 216 Google search term result listings eliminated, gone, AWOL. Worse, on social media, it looks embarrassing as they don’t remove dead links like Google.

 

REDIRECT THE OLD PAGES TO THE NEW

According to Matt Cutts at Google, the best approach is using both 301 page redirects on every page as well as the “Change of Address” tool in the Google Webmaster Console on the site level. Make very sure that in a website redesign that includes a domain change that your new web company updates this as well as the backlinks. The Google Webmaster Console has a backlink analyzer. Its work, but at least you know what you have to do.

Just know that no magic fairy shows up and sprinkles pixie dust onto the Google servers. Your new web company can either choose to do it right, or take the money and run.

The Do’s

• 301 Redirects on every page including your blog, images, videos and PDF’s
• Google Webmaster Change of Address for the Site
• Google Backlink Analyzer to preserve established backlinks and web authority

If your new company doesn’t use the tools Google provides for changes like this, and avoids doing the work to preserve your established web presence, then shame on them.

You’ve been duped.

How SEO is just like the Yellow Pages (back in the day)

When it really comes down to it, SEO (and local SEO) is inbound marketing. Much like a Yellow Pages ad, they represent a way to get your business in front of interested consumers in a time of need for your products and services. Whether you had a backed up drain, or a car dent or a leak in the roof, the yellow pages was there.

With Yellow Page ads (remember them?), as in most forms of advertising media, you can simply pay to appear. You choose your ad size, pay the bill, which was added to your monthly phone bill, and you were good for a year. The sales reps suggested to you “to go horizontal”. If you’ve been in business long enough, you remember the YP reps suggesting “all the other headings” in the book people may look under to find your type of business. SEO is no different. It’s researching phrases people have commonly looked for that are relevant to your business and area served, and performing on-page and off-page SEO to make  as sure as possible you are properly represented on the search return pages.

SEO is a little different than printing the phone book. There is a whole technical process to follow in an effort to improve your visibility and to appear in the local organic search results for your business. This shifts the focus away from the traditional advertising and marketing mindset and more toward unlocking the mystery of strong local search rankings.

The purpose of this post is to help local businesses address this mindset switch.

Back in the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s Yellow Page advertising was a monster money maker for phone companies. In middle markets like Rochester NY, the book even had to be spit up into two books, a white with phone numbers and a yellow with the ads. $34 million dollars of ads (in 1991 dollars) for a book that cost Rochester Telephone (now Frontier) a little over $2 million to print and distribute.

What’s more frustrating is that in 1991, the average Rochester business owner spent $361 a month advertising in the phone book. That’s $755 per month in today’s dollars. Yet most businesses don’t even spend even a small fraction of that in SEO, or more importantly local SEO, which accomplishes the exact same thing as phone books back in the day. For this reason (among others), small business are falling farther and farther behind.

The goal today is still to achieve local visibility, but more importantly, it’s to put the marketing back into marketing. With the internet now untethered from the desk and now in pockets and purses, searches on the local level have increased over 44X what they were just 3 years ago.

Too Much Marketing and Too Little SEO

If we can all agree that SEO and Local SEO is just a form of marketing, then we can likely agree that endlessly buying into search engines that no one has even heard of, or buying some spam links on a link farm is not marketing. SEO makes sure your business really looks the part on those Google and Bing searches. It’s especially important to rank on the first page of results (or as close as possible) for your key terms and long-tails, and ensuring that this content may actually drive business — now that is marketing.

Marketing is every bit of communication you have with the outside world. Marketing is the name of your business, the products and services you sell, your location, logo, branding, website, email signatures and even how you answer the phone. Marketing is your page titles, URL, meta descriptions, keyword density, etc., and most importantly, relevant content, so you show in search engine listing returns. Marketing is every touch point you have with a customer.

In other words, your brand, website, social profiles and activity, Google My Business, Bing For Business, Google Maps, Bing Maps, and of course your appearance in search returns for pertinent queries, are all part of your marketing, and without using someone that does SEO all day long, it can fail.

In the past, a well-placed advertisement will still fail to drive business if the marketing basics are not in place. Likewise, a well-positioned website without a focus on core SEO marketing principles will also fail to generate business. Take the example of meta descriptions. That’s the 155 characters of prime real estate you have under your listing in Google (115 on a smartphone) Meta descriptions don’t directly influence rankings, but they surely influence how your search listing looks to a potential site visitor, which may determine whether it’s clicked or passed over, even if it was #1 on the first page.

That’s just one small (but important) example of what the right marketing company can do.

All of your marketing must pull in the same direction — SEO, local SEO, PPC, content marketing and social media, as well as any outbound marketing done in the physical world. This is a strategic, long-term effort, and the synergy created here ensures that every channel contributes and punches above its weight. The goal is to have one strategically aligned marketing strategy across both the digital and physical landscapes.

Be Patient

Are you married? Have you ever run a marathon? Build ships in a bottle? Paint portraits? Things that are worth doing require commitment, and your marketing is no different. You must be committed to ensuring your site is perfectly optimized. You must be committed to generating good local SEO exposure and links. You must be committed to building your online presence and reputation. You must be committed to building you digital authority in your field. You must be committed to revising and refining your strategy, rain or shine.

Finally, if you’ve never read “Successful Advertising” by Thomas Smith, here is his overview.

• The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
• The second time, they don’t notice it.
• The third time, they are aware that it is there.
• The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
• The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
• The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
• The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
• The eighth time, they start to think, “Here’s that confounded ad again.”
• The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
• The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they’ve tried it.
• The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
• The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
• The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
• The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
• The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
• The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
• The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
• The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
• The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
• The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.

It may be out of print since it was published in 1885.

Are You a Baby Boomer? 10 Easy Ways to Diagnose

With all this talk about Millennials, it’s easy to get side-tracked. If you answer yes to 5 or more of these questions, talk to your doctor, or your retirement expert. You have Baby Boomer Syndrome.

• You know what “duck and cover” means and in elementary school you believed doing that would save you from a nuclear bomb.
• Growing up, your home telephone wasn’t a “land line”….because what the hell else could it have been.
• You know what a card catalog was, and you still don’t understand it.
• You had to go to a library to do research for school projects unless your family was fortunate enough to own a set of encyclopedias, then you went to the library anyways to get away from your parents.
• You had to watch a TV show when it was actually being broadcast.
• You fondly remember loading the film by lining up the holes with those spikes and anticipating what your pictures will look like while they’re being developed.
• You remember AAA Tripkits and folding maps, and worse, asking for directions.
• You remember getting up to change the channel on the TV.
• You remember how cool it was to have a “touch tone” phone, and how it increased your odds of being the 7^th caller to win a radio station contest.
• You wore bell-bottoms, tie-dyed shirts, felt Poodle skirts, bobby-socks, white bucks, or Keds…or worse…wore a nehru jacket.

Bonus: You owned any of these: 45’s, 8-tracks and LPs, pet rocks, a Schwinn bike, a Duncan Yo-Yo, Slinky, Lincoln logs, anything made by Wham-O, Hot Wheels, Rock’em – Sock’em Robots, a superball, mood rings, digital watches, pet rock, ant farms, or a Tyco race set. (extra points for a Lionel Train set).

Lastly…you remember grocery shopping and coming home with it all nicely packed…in big paper bags.

Cecil, a Dentist, and Social Media-10 Reasons This Exploded

I’ll start by saying that after being convicted of lying that he shot a bear 40 miles “that-a-way”, I have a hard time believing he was duped or misled by his “guides”. Mr. Palmer knew what he was doing. You don’t participate in a sport at that level without knowing exactly what’s going on. But why did this explode like it did? Even Yelp traffic went up by double digits this week.

• It’s a lion. Which is nothing but a very big cat. The internet is full of cats. Cats that can’t jump, cats that talk, cats that look grumpy. Pictures of lions and cubs will inevitably tug at heartstrings a little quicker than a rhino or a hyena. Strike One.
• He’s a dentist. From Marathon Man to Little Shop of Horrors. Dentists are high on the list of unlikable professions. And with health care costs spiraling this guy makes enough to spend 6 figures to sweep a sexual harassment charge under the rug, but still travels the globe at $50k a pop to bag heads to mount that would make the Rockefellers blush? Strike two.
• Cecil was a bit of a celebrity. He was studied for years by Oxford. He had a collar. In a preserve. And saw so many people up close taking pictures, he was fairly people friendly as big cats go. He picked the wrong animal. Strike 3
• I hate to pick on Millennials. But Millennials grew up on the internet. And Millennials drive social media. And the one movie they all watched as a kid? The Lion King. Strike 4
• The animal suffered. This wasn’t a clean kill. This poor creature of God wandered around bleeding with an arrow stuck in it for two full days. Strike 5
• They lured Cecil out of the preserve by dragging a bleeding baby elephant behind a truck to get him on “private property” No one likes a cheater. This was a cheat. Ask Tom Brady. No one outside of New England believe this guy for a second. Sadly, even the twin cities now hate Dr. Palmer. Strike 6.
• It takes us away for just a moment from the bigger issues. Black lives matter, police brutality, the economy, the Planned Parenthood controversy. It’s not a political talking point so everyone can pile on and still feel good about themselves. Strike 7
• Money to Burn. I have to go here. This guy was a dentist. A beautiful home in the Minnesota suburbs, with an even nicer winter home down in sunny Florida. And the whopping fees from the harassment lawsuit and the constant traveling around the globe killing exotic animals. Why do I keep seeing on twitter and other social platforms that Dr Walter Palmer maxed out his giving in the last election cycle to Mitt Romney? Because in this context that matters.
• Opps.…After word of the perpetrator broke out Tuesday, the River Bluff Dental feed had priceless gems like this “We’d be lion if we said we weren’t a little bummed by all the negative tweets coming our way.” And this “We’re encouraging the community to share their favorite #CecilTheLion memories. We’ll RT our favorite ones.” WTH? And then the last tweet before the shit-storm really started “Please pray for Cecil. Please pray for our practice.”  And then they went dark. Website, social media, everything got unplugged.
• The worst idea (short of killing a national attraction). And even worse than hiding, issuing a weak statement throwing the guides under the bus, with even weaker language like the lion was “taken” instead of “killed” But the hiding? It fueled the “hunter became the hunted” mentality even more, throwing even more gasoline on the fire.

I’m thinking it will be a while before we ever see anything like this again anytime soon. It was the “perfect storm” on social media.

Can You Smell The SEO Bullsh#&?

If you are a small business owner, it’s very likely that your inbox and voicemail’s are full of “Guaranteed Top Rankings in Google” Bullshit.

If you have a website, or even a blog, the comments are full of SEO spam.

We get the calls here at TABB Solutions and our first response is “did you even take a moment and Google us?” Of course not. This is rapid fire dialing for dollars. Your Dollars. As in Taking Dollars Out Of You Bank Account.

So, while this SEO Guaranteed 1^st page listing is a pox on the SEO Industry, we proudly present…

The Top 10 SEO Guaranteed Rankings Fallacies

• As the premier SEO firm…”We have a “special relationship with Google” or “We are Google certified.”

Fact: While there is such a thing as Google Partners, Google does not have a certification for SEO, nor do they have “a special relationship” with any SEO firm. Best to consult Google. Here’s their take, and TABB encourages you to read the entire page. Per Google…

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google.

• “We’ll submit your website to over 100’s of search engines!”

Really? It would probably take me months and months to do all that myself.

How many search engines have you heard of? Better yet…How many do you use on a regular basis?

You’re not unique here. Most people use Google – about 3/4 of people in the US as a matter of fact. Bing and Yahoo share the other 1/4. Ask.com, Dogpile, Metacrawler, Duck, etc. – the small handful of remaining search engines collectively get about 2% of search traffic. And the few hundred others are spam sites that will clog your email box.

The fact is, there aren’t a few hundred search engines to worry about. That’s Bullshit. There are three. And if you’re really pressed, there is one – Google.

• 500 Directory Links for $149.95″

Link building is just one of over 200 factors or so in the Google algorithm. Link building is also really, really hard. And just 1 or 2 good quality links will outweigh 100’s of low quality links.

So when someone comes along offering you 500 links for $150 you might be thinking why not? BUT….Ask yourself: if you were Google would you want it to be this easy for websites to achieve top rankings? Just drop a few hundred here or there on a few links and just like that, you’re at the top?

Of course not. It’s Bullshit. Ask the BBC or Mozilla, or JC Penny, or BMW, or any of the big boys that got penalized by Google and disappeared from page 1 for weeks and months (until it was all those low quality links were cleaned up at great expense).They scammed the big guys, now they’re scamming you.

• “1st Page of Google in 48 Hours!”

Really? Sign me up! This scam preys on those in a hurry. The good news is you don’t have to hire them…you can hire anyone. You can even do it yourself!

• Step 1: Sign up for AdWords
• Step 2: Pick a keyword, any keyword
• Step 3: Pay
• Step 4:  Bingo! You’re on the first page (with hours to spare)

REAL SEO in 48 Hours? Bullshit.

SEO isn’t only a science, it’s also an art. This means any firm promising you results in a week or in a month is one to be totally avoided. Another sneaky way to get fast results is to employ “black hat” techniques. While these shortcuts might seem like a quicker pay off, they’re also a sure way to get your business sitting in the penalty box with Google. Genuine SEO takes time, and it’s an ongoing process. As the results continue to improve, the right firm will continue to keep yielding positive results month over month, year over year.

• We’ve Cracked the Google Code

Holy Shit! Sign me up! This could be a movie. This is bigger than the formula for Coke! It’s like cracking a safe. Only the combination changes several time a week. Seriously. Major updates hit pretty often, but there are several minor updates a week and hundreds of tweaks each year. Even if the Zombie Apocalypse finally hits and Albert Einstein rises from the dead clutching the solved Google algorithm, it will change tomorrow. That’s guaranteed.

• Link Directories

“I heard links are good, so why not?” If they talk about link directories, your SEO consultant/company is basically telling you that their link building strategy amounts to nothing more than a thin link exchange program. For an upfront fee, they scam clients (and Google with worthless incoming and outgoing links). Run. Run away. Run away screaming “run away!” so everyone else can hear you. See # 3 for the Google penalties.

• Their Packages Are One Size Fits All – Or they have the Sears Good, Better, Best Approach

Most every time I click on an email (oddly, most come from Hotmail) the sites have 1-3 “SEO levels”, most all have a substantial “start-up fee” followed by high monthly fees.

Every business has a different website. Businesses have different needs, goals, target audience, and overall specific reasons to jump into the SEO. If you’re talking to a firm and their packages are “one size fits all,” go look for a better fit. Good firms need to really study your business, understand your objectives, research your competition, analyze your website, and only then can they put together a solution. Beware of firms that have ‘packages’ and sell you into one of them before doing a deep-dive into your business.

• They “know someone at Google” or have an “inside connection at Google”.

Worse, we’ve even heard “We are calling from Google”. Right, right….BULLSHIT! Google doesn’t call any business. Period. You really think Google employees are selling SEO state secrets to your consultant? Or they moonlight with SEO firms? And even if any SEO firm was handed the over 200 variables in the algorithm, it’s not like it’s a freakin’ Betty Crocker recipe, plus along with the basic variables you’d need the miles of code and again it changes all the time. Doubt me? Google “google authorship” and the first result (a Google page) states that it no longer factors in searches. It was. But now it’s not. Same with Meta-Keywords. The algorithm changes almost daily.

• Our methods are a “trade secret” or they use “proprietary software”

Of course some things are proprietary – you can’t expect companies and consultants to give up all their secrets. First, there should be a complete list of what they do, not exactly “how” but “what”. If your contract is full of fuzzy details, time to move on.

If you hitched a ride back to your car repair shop and the mechanic gave you a bill stating “secret car repairs $1700”, well you get the idea. And as far as software is concerned? No. That’s Bullshit. Anyone who has sat with a real SEO consultant for a day will tell you, there is no automation. And if it was a software engineer, they’d tell you there’s no way to automate it.

And lastly, this is the big one.

• We Guarantee 1^st page listings for 10 (or 50 or 100) keywords

These firms all have one thing in common. All these firms use the Google keyword # of returns for their “Guarantee”. The fine print? They only guarantee keyword searches for words that have under 1 million google returns.

So…ever notice when you Google anything, Google gives you the number of returns?

Google “diapers” and you’ll see 85 million search returns. Google “Baby Diapers” 65 million returns. “Baby diapers in bulk”? 5.1 million. “Baby diapers in bulk by mail order” 4.7 million.  OK, a consumer item sold to a small part of the population doesn’t qualify… let’s try B2B.

There are 200,000 dentists in the US. Surely if I google “dental supplies” that will be under a million. Nope. 48 million returns. “Professional Dental Supplies”? Crap, 4 million. OK…B2B is out. Let’s try a skilled trade in the B2B world.

“Fire Engineering” 43 million. “Fire protection engineering” 36 million. “Fire protection engineering magazines”? Nope, out of luck, 1.5 million returns.

As a matter of fact, you’d be hard pressed to look for anything that people actually look for that has under 1 million search returns on Google.

Do you think now that maybe, just maybe, these companies don’t guarantee shit? You’d be right.

Small Business Mobile Marketing 101

Hello and Welcome to,

All you need to do is take a look around at your fellow commuters in the morning to see the sheer ubiquity of mobile devices in our daily lives. 

Is mobile important to your business? With Google reporting last month that more than half the searches are on mobile phones…yes. Is everything mobile important for your business? The answer, as always, is it depends on your business itself and what your potential customers have come to expect from your competitors. There are some essential ways your business needs to get mobile-friendly and how you can determine the best way to present your business to your mobile market..

Mobile Essentials for Your Business

If you could only do one thing in terms of mobile for your business, what should it be? The answer: make your website mobile-friendly. Not just iPhone friendly or smartphone friendly, but any and all possible and future mobile device friendly. The way to do this is through responsive design. It’s a web design that is fluid, and that fluidity allows it to reshape itself depending on the resolution and screen size of the visitor. It works for desktop browsers, tablet browsers of all sizes, and smartphone browsers of all sizes.

The reason responsive design works better than having a mobile-only website is simple. People get the same user experience and access to the same pages on your website, no matter what device they are using. They’ll never run into the issue where they search for something on Google, click on the link, and then not get the page because it’s not mobile optimized. Everything on your website will be made mobile-friendly.

If you hire a web designer, and you should because the “do-it-yourself” website companies not only slam you for loads of money on the back-end, but their SEO is kindergarten stuff, look for those who offer responsive web design. Better yet, test their site here and don’t even think of hiring a company that doesn’t have their own site done (you can’t buy a Lexus at a Yugo dealer!) But get a mobile friendly site and do it soon. Your customers are guaranteed to love it!

Mobile “Maybes” for Your Business

Now, let’s look at the other mobile trends and technologies that might sound great at first, but may not actually be practical for your business.

Mobile Apps

Statistics can be deceiving, which is why you need to proceed with caution when it comes to investing in other types of mobile technology for your business. For example, I could tell you that people spend time on apps. Sounds great for mobile app developers, yes? But the truth is, the 89% of time spent on mobile apps is spent on incredibly popular apps like Facebook, Gmail, and Weather. not necessarily apps created by businesses selling products and services.

If you are going to create an app, you need to be prepared to spend on the app and spend more to promote it. You can work with big name mobile app development companies, or you can choose from a wide range of mobile app builders that let you do it yourself that charge one-time and recurring fees. Either way, you will be investing a good bit of time and/or money to your mobile app. Hence, you’ll want to make it something unique that your customer base will love. Maybe it’s an easier way to buy your products on mobile, or simply a great resource that people who buy your product will want to have. If it’s just a reboot of your website inside an app, then it’s not worth the investment.

Not sure if you should have an app, or what it should be? Check out your competitors. Do they have apps? What type of apps do they have? How well are the apps received (reviews on iTunes or Google Play)? If the competitor research proves promising, only then you may want to consider it.

SMS Messaging

SMS marketing can work as well, as research shows as such as 98% of text messages are read and responded to in 90 seconds and coupons sent via SMS are more likely to redeemed and shared than those sent by mail. Fortunately, SMS messaging services can be relatively inexpensive, with some starting at $20 per month for up to 500 texts.

That said, the challenge will be whether you can get people to give you their mobile numbers.

To find out if your ideal customers are ready for SMS marketing, check out your customers. If they are willing to give their mobile number in exchange for discount or specials, it’s another avenue to pursue. Most of the “pay-per-text” plans are gone by the wayside as that was the deal killer back a few years ago. Beauty Shops, Tanning Salons, and Pizza/sub shops and more can benefit from this type of marketing.

QR Codes

QR Codes kind of came-and-went but since you still see them around you might consider them. QR codes are a tough sell on the general public. Those who are not technologically savvy likely do not have a QR code reader on their mobile device to begin with, which makes your QR code useless to them (no phone comes with a QR reader, the app needs to be downloaded). That said, if your ideal customers are tech-friendly, then QR codes can be a great addition to your marketing collateral.

And last but not least…

Social Media

Chances are good that you tried social media by getting a Facebook Business page back when they were sending out signs to businesses saying “Like us on Facebook” then quit circa 2012-13.  How close am I?

I say this because I look at business websites all day long, and more likely than not, the average last business Facebook post I see is summer of 2013.That’s about when Facebook started limiting the reach to you followers. Now, the average reach of a business post is less than 6% of people who have liked your page. Facebook is slowly cranking it down to zero.  That doesn’t mean you have to pay, as there is a way around it, but that’s fodder for another post. Again, depending on your market, there is Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram….  You don’t need to do them all, but these days, it raises an alarm in people’s minds if you are totally absent.

Pick a few, keep to a schedule, stay consistent, and if nothing else, social media backs up your authority and your web presence, through increased SEO. Social media got a very big second wind with mobile and it behooves you to maintain a presence. And when TABB does social media, the goal is to have that post, in time, appear in search engine results pages, opening doors you never thought possible to your business, through targeted keyword and long-tail searches.

It all comes back to “Mobile Responsive”

But each and every one of these simply do not work if your “desktop” site is not mobile-friendly. Forget Google penalizing desktop sites in searches, and just look around you. Mobile has over 1.5 billion searches a day, and that’s just Google. There is no better time than now to begin reaching your audiences where they spend the majority of their time, regardless of device. Mobile is no longer an edge case, but rather should be top of mind for every business owner. Get a mobile-friendly responsive page and do it ASAP.

Call me toll-free for an estimate, 844-879-8222 extension 5.

The 2 Basics of Marketing to Millennials

Millennials — young adults who are currently between ages 18 and 34 have $1.3 trillion in annual buying power. That’s certainly enough to make any marketer sit up and take notice. But despite common misconceptions of the group as a single, narcissistic entity, they grew up on the web and social media.

In a Nielsen study from last fall, 85% of millennials use smartphones daily.

So in 2015, for businesses to be successful, creating a social media strategy is a must. Web design is no different when it comes to this. Why? Social Media drives traffic to your website for conversions.

Social Media and Web Design

Social media needs to be properly integrated into your website using specialized SEO tools.

There is no better platform to let people know about your social media presence than the home page of your business website. This is why almost all the websites have the icons of different social media websites. Clicking on any of those should lead the website visitor to the company’s social media page (always in a new window!). This is becoming imperative for any website.

Webpage Design Extends to Social Media Pages, News/Updates/Blog posts and Social Media Profiles

The advent of social media has made the internet into a real-time, interactive marketplace. It’s useless to continue having the static webpage you set up 5 or 10 years ago. In addition to creating an attractive website, it is also important to have a prominent social presence. And for that, you need to design how you want to present yourself in front of your potential customers through those social media platforms.

For example, if you want your business to be present on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Pinterest through a page, it is important to design the page properly. The profiles that you have on these social media websites need to be designed in such a way that they can grab the attention of the viewers with immediate effect.

The goal is to brand your business across the web. 

The reality is that most small business owners don’t have the time to generate quality content and images, much less have the tools and knowledge to properly integrate white hat SEO into the text and images for social media and company blog/news/update posts.

Optimized Web Content – Social Media and Business Blogs are Rarely SEO Optimized

Millennials use smartphones and social media.  What’s that mean to a business? You must have a mobile responsive webpage and you must post to social media on a regular, frequent basis.

Then, on each and every post, it’s imperative that both the text and the images need proper SEO, so they are indexed by Google (and Bing and Yahoo). That’s why it pays to have Social Media and Blog Post SEO.

If you’re just posting updates to your social pages for a handful of “likes” and not with the ultimate goal of keyword and long-tail searches in Google,then you are wasting your time. 

However, If you’d like to see how Social Post SEO works….

Open a new tab on your browser, go to Google search this phrase “neighborhood security patrols tampa”

Take a look at the organic listings.  The first 3 listings are social media blog posts for the same company.  You’ll notice a LinkedIn social media profile as well.  4 of the top 5 results are for the same company and they all place ahead of other bigger competitor web pages and news outlets underneath them.

BTW, those posts are 5-8 months old! And they are still number 1,2 and 3 for a long tail local search.  Just 4 words.

Because this is how millennials shop now.  They are the reason there are more searches on mobile than on desktop. They are the reason mobile use has exploded.  So remember…to market to millennials: 

• One…Have a solid mobile web presence. 
• Two…Have a solid social presence. 

Without either, forget any other steps.