Monitoring and building Online Reviews is becoming increasingly important to small business owners.

In this Q&A video, Don answers many of the common questions that small business owners have such as:

• Why are online reviews important?
• Where can people leave online reviews?
• What if someone leaves me a bad review?
• How should I ask my customers for online reviews?
• Should I hire someone to create reviews for me?

The free Online Reviews Dashboard tool he mentions in the video is called myReviewsPage.com.

Don, Randy and Thomas built the tool to help their clients monitor and build their online reviews. It allows you to create a dashboard of your online reviews from Google, Yahoo, Bing, CitySearch, Yelp and Foursquare check-ins, and receive email alerts when you get new reviews too.

Take a look, and let us know what you think!

Facebook announced a ton of new technology at their F8 Developers Conference yesterday in San Francisco. At the conference they unveiled a ton of new technologies that I think could reshape the web.

This is a “gloves off” move between Facebook and Google. Facebook is claiming they have a better way of determining the relevance of web pages, based on social interactions online rather than by ranking pages based on back links. They call it the Open Graph.

Facebook for Websites

There are a bunch of new Facebook social plugins you can add to your website. One of the things that you can do immediately is allow your visitors to “Like” any web page or blog post on your site by adding a few simple lines of code. You can literally treat URL on your website like a Facebook page!

Here’s an example of a button that shows your visitor who else in their social network “Liked” this page, and allows them to “Like” your page with a comment too.

It’s dynamic – go ahead – Click It!

Adding Facebook Social Plugins to Your Blog (or Website)

Adding one of these to your website is super easy. Just go to the Like Button plugin page at Facebook, and they have a tool that helps you get the code.

Enter in the URL of your page and push the Get Code button and you’ll get the code you can embed on your website. You need to use the iFrame version of the code unless you’ve added the Facebook JavaScript SDK to your site.

What if I want to Add it to ALL my Blog Posts?

That’s cool for an individual page or post on your site, but what if you want to include this on all your blog posts?

Well, if you are using the Thesis WordPress Theme you can use “hooks” and a little WordPress code to easily add this to all your blog posts automatically.

Here’s how to do it.

Thesis conveniently provides a hook called thesis_hook_after_post that allows you to add anything you want after every post on your site. Here’s the code you need to add to that hook to get this new Facebook Like Button to show up at the bottom of every post:


/* Facebook Plugin After Post Hook */
function add_social_media () {
if (is_single()) {
?>
<?php
echo '<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=';
echo the_permalink();
echo ' "scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; width:450px;height:30px"></iframe>'
?>
<?php
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_post', 'add_social_media');



The WordPress function the_permalink(); gives you the URL of your blog post so that the likes are unique to the particular post instead of your whole blog.

You can add this hook to your custom_functions.php file like this, or using the Rick Beckman’s excellent OpenHook plugin.

If you use OpenHook to do this, you’ll want to leave out the function wrapper and add_action. So the code you paste in the after_post_hook box will look like this:

<?php
echo '<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=';
echo the_permalink();
echo ' "scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; width:450px;height:30px"></iframe>'
?>



Give it a try and let me know what you think in the comments below!

You can Get Thesis here. I recommend BlueHost for WordPress hosting.

Google Docs, Calendar and other Google services require you to log in to Google. But did you know you can create a Google Account with any email address?

You don’t have to use GMail – you can use your Yahoo email, Hotmail, AOL mail, the email address your Internet provider gave you, or any address to create one.

Video – Create Google Account With Any Email Address

This video shows you how:

This is what the Google login looks like. Just choose the link below the entry fields to create a Google account.

There are a growing number of third party websites using Google Accounts for authentication as well. This means that you can use the same login across all of these services instead of creating a new userid and password for each.

Anyway, I get this question a lot, so I thought I would point it out.

Thoughts? Comments? Did you know this already?

Have you ever wanted to feature your YouTube Channel on your Facebook Page?

I do a lot of video screen-casts and I’ve been looking for a way do do that for Expand2Web for a while.

I tried a few of the apps on Facebook but didn’t really like any of them. So I ended up building a static FBML page just featuring a few videos. But if I wanted to change any of the videos I had to edit the page.

Well just the other day, my good friend – and awesome web designer – Eileen Lonergan showed me this service called Involver. It’s just what I was looking for. It will instantly create a new tab on your Facebook page, allowing you to feature your YouTube channel.

It does a lot of other things too, but this is the one I was looking for, and it’s free.

Here’s a screenshot of my Expand2Web Facebook Fan page, on the YouTube Channel Tab. It allows me to feature my latest video, and also shows the the previous videos too. It changes dynamically as I publish new videos to my Expand2Web YouTube Channel.

What about you – do you have a Facebook Fan Page yet? What apps are you finding the most valuable? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

I first signed up for Facebook in 2007 while I was at Microsoft. We were doing a partnership with Facebook, and as a Platform Evangelist my job was to keep current with new developments on the web and in social media.

As I started using Facebook more, I hooked up my blog and Twitter updates so they automatically flow through to my personal Facebook page. This has worked pretty well; it resulted in a lot of great conversations and many new friends.

Now my Facebook friends represent a pretty diverse set of people – people I’ve worked with, people I’ve met online, and friends from high school and college.

As Facebook kicks into high gear I’m making a minor shift in my content strategy. I’m creating a Facebook Fan Page for Expand2Web that will feature everything that’s posted on my blog plus some exclusive content for those who opt in and become a fan.

This is similar to how I approach Twitter, which also features some links and tips that might not appear on my blog. I see the new Facebook Page fills a “gap” between conversations on my blog and Twitter, and I’m hoping to spark some interesting discussions from a broader group of people that might not follow RSS or Twitter feeds.

Please join in the conversation and become a fan. I’m always open to input and suggestions, so if you have any I would love to hear them in the comments below or on my Facebook page!

I was grabbing lunch at Plutos in Santana Row, and checked in with FourSquare. I’ve been checking in to most places I visit with FourSquare, Gowalla and Yelp just to see how these services are evolving and to get ideas for my clients.

When I checked in today, there was a green banner in the upper right corner that said “Special Nearby“. When I clicked on it, it told me about a special at the pub across the street – Rosie McCann’s.

They had a special for half-off any appetizer, and also a free pint for the “Mayor” when he or she checks in. Hey, I want to be the mayor there!

What is Foursquare?

If you are not familiar with FourSquare, this service allows your to “check in” from your phone when you visit a local establishment. The person who has the most check ins for a given place becomes the “mayor.”

People get very excited about being the mayor for their favorite lunch spot or pub. It’s a super cool idea.

Businesses should do more experimenting with this. You don’t even have to advertise with FourSquare – you could just put a sign up in your establishment saying “The Mayor gets a free pint at check in!” and that would do the trick.

What a great way to engage and reward your customers.

I just installed the Google Voice extension for Chrome browser, and stumbled on this neat little trick – once installed, it turns any phone number on a web page you are visiting into a click-to-call hyperlink!

When you click it, it will dial that phone number and ring your phone to connect the two of you instantly.

Pretty cool – here’s a short video to show you what I mean.

So what is Google Voice?

Google Voice is a free service that gives you a local phone number. It will route voice mail messages to your email, and even transcribe them to text for you. You can set it up to route calls any way you want; for example, ring your office phone during the day, cell phone at night, or just go straight to voice mail.

Links

Google Voice
Google Chrome browser
Google Voice Extension for Chrome

Google launched an interesting new tool today – Google Buzz. Google Buzz is Google’s way to help you connect and engage with the people in your social circles.

Sort of like Facebook, but built right into Gmail. And it turns out there is a huge mobile and local component to it.

Using Buzz on Mobile Devices

When using Buzz on mobile devices like iPhone or Android, it:

1. Uses your location to identify places around you.
2. Allows you to create messages based on your location (kind of like Foursquare, Gowalla or Yelp)
3. Adds a Buzz layer to Google Maps on your device, where you can post public comments or photos. Perhaps most interesting is you can visit a Place Page for a local business and see what others are “buzzing” about there.
4. Voice shortcut – this is pretty cool. It allows you to post buzz without even typing anything when you say “post buzz” followed by your post.

Small Businesses Could Leverage Influential Buzzers to promote their site

Social media strategist Jeremiah Owyang mentioned something interesting in his Quick Take on Google Buzz:

…or small busineses and retailers, this will impact their search engine results pages, as a single top ‘buzzer’ could cause their content to be very relevant, if that person was relevant, then their influential content could show at top of SERP pages.

If you could get “top buzzers” buzzing about your business… This would be cool in a couple of ways – updates from a top “buzzer” would show up in their activity stream on their Google Profile, and also on your business Place Page.

And nearby people who are in Google Buzz on their mobile devices would see the activity about your business on the new “Buzz Layer” in Google Maps too.

Take Aways for Local Businesses

Here’s what I think every local business should be doing to take advantage of this:

1. Claim your Google Local Business Center Profile if you haven’t already!
2. Add photos and other details about your business so that your Place Page looks sweet. Make sure to get some online reviews too.
3. Set up your Google Profile, and find and connect with “Buzzers” in your area!

Google Buzz for Mobile – Video

Here is the official post on Google Buzz from the Google Mobile Blog, and an insightful summary by Matt McGee at Search Engine Land.

What do you think about Google Buzz? Is this huge for local businesses or will it be ignored?

Watch this video to see how to add cool looking Twitter, YouTube and Facebook icons that link to your social media profiles to your WordPress Website sidebar:

In this video I’m using version 1.5 of the Expand2Web SmallBiz WordPress Theme, which comes with a default sidebar with social media icons for Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. I show you how to replace this default sidebar with one that links to your own social media profiles.

Note: The steps that show adding widgets to your sidebar in this video will work with any Widget-enabled WordPress Theme.

Here is the code

Just copy this code and paste it into a WordPress Text Widget. Then replace the # in the hrefs with links to your social media profiles like I show in the video:

<br>
<p align="center"><a href="#" target="_blank"><img src="./wp-content/themes/smallbiz/images/twitter_link.gif" class="frame" alt="Expand2Web Twitter Feed"/></a></p>

<p align="center"><a href="#" target="_blank"><img src="./wp-content/themes/smallbiz/images/youtube_link.gif" class="frame" alt="Expand2Web YouTube Link"/></a></p>

<p align="center"><a href="#" target="_blank"><img src="./wp-content/themes/smallbiz/images/facebook_link.gif" class="frame" alt="Expand2Web Facebook Link"/></a></p>

<p align="center">I hope you'll join the conversation with us!</p>

A note on the images

Depending on where you have your WordPress installed, the image icons might break when you navigate to sub directories. This is because I can’t predict whether your WordPress install is in the root of your domain or in a sub directory.

But it’s an easy fix though. All you have to do is replace the relative image path:

img src="./wp-content/themes/smallbiz/images/twitter_link.gif

with an absolute one like this:

img src="http://www.localsearchtips.com/smallbizdemo/wp-content/themes/smallbiz/images/twitter_link.gif

Notice how I replaced the . at the beginning of the image path with the complete URL of where your WordPress is installed.

Here are the icons

If you are not using my SmallBiz WordPress Theme then you will need to upload the images to WordPress yourself. I’ve included them below in case you need them. Just right click and Save them to your desktop, then upload to your WordPress media area.

Note: The SmallBiz Theme allows you to set different sidebars per page. This video tutorial shows you how to do that.

Let me know what you think in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you!

Google Social Search is an “experimental” feature you can turn on find publicly available web content from your “social circle.”

This sounds kind of like the Facebook “social grid,” except it pulls info from across many other web services like Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, your Blog, and thousands of others.

The online social services you belong to create an implicit network of connections called your “social circle.” In the video below, Matt Cutts describes how this all works.

How does Google know your social circle?

How does Google know your social circle? It looks at your social connections and web content like blogs, status updates, tweets and pictures.

Then it pulls these different pieces of your social circle together in one place and surfaces this content in your search results.

It pulls them from three primary locations:

1. Your public Google Profile (which includes links to your social services)
2. Your Google Chat buddies
3. Google Reader – the blogs you subscribe to

Google takes its regular web index data, and annotates it with information from these social networks, then surfaces public content from your social circle at the bottom of your web search results.

What if you don’t want Google pulling this information together?

Your Google Profile seems to be the “hub” for most of the information it finds to augment search results with social info.

You don’t have to create one, and if you do have one, you can control which links to social networks you add to your profile. Matt Cutts stresses in the video that they are only crawling information that is already publicly available.

I think it would be very cool if they also looked at location information. For example, if my social connections had a Google Maps profile in the Google Local Business center maybe that information could show up as well.

One thing that seems strange to me – why doesn’t it leverage anything from Google Friend Connect? It seems like it should consider my GFC friends as part of the social circle.

Try it out and let me know your impressions, I’d love to hear them!