I had the wonderful opportunity to be a guest of the Greater Westfield Chamber of Commerce at the JCC in Scotch Plains last night. We had a great talk about all things search. I really enjoyed the interaction with the group as we were able to drop some of the formality and have more of a conversational atmosphere. A 45-minute talk ended up going to almost 90 minutes and I really loved it.
Question and Anwer
Everyone was genuinely interested and asked great questions about pay per click targeting, the Google algorithm, business names, blog content, seedy SEO scams, and everything in between. It is a great chamber with over 500 members and I’m very happy to be a part of it.
I had the opportunity to answer detailed questions about business owners SEO and general search issues with a salon, the legal field, video production, and much more. We addressed specific issues with dropping in the rankings when your company name or address changes. We talked about the importance of link “signals” to Google and how important it is for a local business to show they are involved with chambers, local groups, charities, etc.
One of the biggest issues facing small businesses in 2017 is making sure they have nice thorough content on their pages describing what their products or services are. The old days of ranking with a couple of sentences are over and we need to create good content that provides Google with a “good answer” to a search query.
Also updated everyone on the important development issues on the immediate horizon like getting an SSL certificate for your site, and though you should be already, making absolutely sure that your site is mobile friendly before 2018, or you are going to be in some trouble. Over 57% of traffic is already from mobile devices, so you should be there already.
If you are interested in a long form talk to your group or organization, we get quite a bit done when we have an hour or so to talk. I am happy to come speak to chambers and other business organizations about how all of this works. It is important to educate business owners so they avoid some of the scams out there.
If you are a member of the chamber and weren’t able to make it out last night or to any of the sessions on Tuesday, please feel free to reach out. I am happy to do a free audit of your site and have a discussion with you. I’m offering this to the full chamber.
A special thank you goes out to Terry Viney of The Plus Factor and David Sokoler of Merandex for their assistance in putting things together.
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