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Shocking News: Russia Buys Google

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

So, this is pretty unbelievable news.
Very quietly, over the last two weeks, some of our country’s biggest search engine companies have moved their operations over to Russia. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing are among these companies. The news hasn’t been publicly announced yet, but we managed to get an early scoop.
Why the move? Our sources tell us it boils down to money—specifically, taxes. The owners of Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and other Internet companies escaped to Russia for tax benefits. President Vladimir Putin allowed them to establish operations there and enjoy tax-free status, but only under one condition: that they rename their companies after him.
Here’s a sneak peek at the companies’ new branding.
Google is now “Puugle”:
Yahoo! is now “Yahpu!”:
Bing is now “Puting”:
And we actually managed to get an exclusive look at the new Puugle home page! Check it out at www.puugle.com.
Needless to say, this is going to have unpredictable, far-reaching ramifications for the whole online advertising industry. So stay tuned for updates as this story develops.

Why Does Your Business Have So Many Missed Calls?

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Have we told you lately how important it is to answer your phone?
We’ve noticed many of our clients have a staggering number of missed calls.
It all started with Google. In doing our day-to-day marketing tasks for clients, we discovered many clients are consistently missing important calls from Google. Not only is this a pain for us—because then we have to schedule another appointment for you to speak with Google—but it also makes us worry about your phone habits in general.

Why aren’t you picking up the phone in the first place?
In this newsletter, we’ll explore two major reasons to answer your phone. We’ll also offer some tips to help you stay on top of incoming calls.
Let’s get started.

Why Should You Want to Answer the Phone?

The caller might actually be Google.
The caller might be an interested customer.

If It’s Google:

You want to answer the phone because missing this call will prevent your listing from being verified. This is especially urgent at the beginning of your campaign, when we’re setting up your listing. However, we’re constantly checking your listings and making necessary changes throughout the duration of your campaign, so Google may call to re-verify your listing at any time.
Without verification from Google, your local web presence will suffer because your listing will not be visible to users. As a result, you could miss out on serious money in lost business.

If It’s a Customer:

You want to answer the phone because missing this call means your customer will be giving their money to one of your competitors instead of working with you. Consistently missing customers’ calls is another way you could be losing thousands of dollars in business. That’s a pretty strong reason to pick up your phone.

How You Can Take Action Without Much Effort

Now that you’ve discovered what’s at stake, arm yourself with the right knowledge and tools to avoid missed calls in the future. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know:

Legitimate customers may be calling from out-of-area phone numbers. Thanks to cell phones, area codes don’t mean anything anymore.
Always answer any call from the (650) area code. This is Google.
You can use call forwarding for your CallTrax number so you don’t miss calls while you’re out.
You can also use a professional answering service if you’re bothered by constant disruptions or marketing calls.

Don’t Automatically Dismiss Out-of-Area Phone Calls

Many local business owners might see an area code from out of state or even out of their service area and assume it’s not a legitimate customer calling. However, area codes are essentially meaningless nowadays.
An out-of-area phone number doesn’t necessarily mean the call isn’t coming from a local resident. Many people exclusively use cell phones, and they keep their phone number when they move from one state to another. Area codes only tell you where an individual first signed up for their phone plan.
On top of that, unless your business is located in the San Francisco Bay area, Google’s calls will always register as out of area for you. Remember: Google will be calling from a (650) area code. If you see that number, answer it.

Call-Forwarding for Your CallTrax Number Is a Game Changer

Have you tried out our call-forwarding feature?
When set up correctly, our call-forwarding feature will ensure you never miss a phone call. Without it, you miss any calls that come to your main CallTrax number every time you’re out on a job or leave the main office.
Setting up call-forwarding is easy. Through the Client Portal, you can add the phones you would like your CallTrax number to forward to. You can have calls sent to your cell phone instead of the main office during certain times of day, like when you’re back at home for the night. You can also have calls routed to a second and even third phone number after the main phone misses a certain number of rings.
However you decide to set it up, keep track of which phones calls are forwarded to at different times of day. Don’t leave your cell phone in your office all night if your calls are being forwarded to it after hours!

Professional Answering Services Are Available if the Phone Just Isn’t Your Thing

Some business owners just don’t like being on the phone, and that’s why they avoid answering it. While we totally understand how uncomfortable it can feel to talk to strangers, and how disruptive it can feel when you’re in the middle of a job, we can’t let you miss that many phone calls. It’s harming your business.
If you really can’t stand being on the phone—or you’re simply too busy—hire a professional answering service to do it for you. While we don’t endorse any particular company, we have clients who successfully use AnswerConnect as their answering service.
(Bonus: An answering service will screen out marketing calls so you never have to deal with them!)
Explore other strategies for handling missed calls.

The Good Outweighs the Bad

Make it a policy to answer your phone as often as possible. What do you have to lose?
Even if the caller turns out to be a solicitor, you’ll only be wasting a minute or two on the phone. Isn’t it worth losing just a minute of your time if it means you’ll be there to speak with Google and countless prospective customers when they call? With literally thousands of dollars on the line, we feel it’s well worth the risk.

One Simple Way to Take Control of Your Online Presence

Last Updated: February 18, 2016

When it comes to maintaining your small business’s online presence, it can feel like there are too many variables out of your control. Search engines like Google seem to hold all the cards most of the time.
The truth is, unless you know how to plan and execute an effective online advertising campaign—or you hire a marketing specialist to take care of that for you—you won’t have very much control over what happens to your company’s online presence. However, there’s one thing you can control, and that’s the accuracy of the information you put online about your company.

Why Is Conflicting Information Problematic?

Maintaining consistent, accurate information about your business on all the different online channels is crucial. Google and other search engines want to present the best possible information to their users, so they gather data from around the web to verify what’s on your company’s listing. And when Google sees conflicting details about your company coming from different sources, it flags your listing for having the wrong information: Google won’t want to display your business as a search result if there’s a chance it’s not a legitimate company. This results in poor rankings and, sometimes, suspended listings.
Needless to say, if there’s a lot of inaccurate or inconsistent information out there about your business, your online presence will take a colossal hit. Conflicting information won’t just slow down your progress—it will blow your progress to smithereens. It’s a tripwire that businesses trigger over and over and over.
So how can you figure out if your business has conflicting information floating around out there? More importantly, what can you do about it?
Let’s find out.

What Does Conflicting Information Look Like?

First, you need to know what you’re looking for.
For example, if the information about your company on your Google listing doesn’t match what it says about your company on your Yelp listing, then you’ve got a case of conflicting information. This can take a variety of forms:

Mismatching spelling, spacing, and/or punctuation of company name, such as:
- “B&B Appliance Repair” versus “B and B Appliance Repair”
- “Mike’s Plumbing” versus “Mike’s Plumbing Service”
- “Day and Night Heating” versus “Day and Nite Heating”
Mismatching address, such as:
- Different cities
- Wrong house numbers
- Wrong street suffixes (Columbus Dr. versus Columbus Ave.)
Mismatching service offerings or business categories, such as:
- Different main categories
- Listing services you don’t provide
- Not listing services you do provide
Mismatching website URLs

Take the time to fill out your online listings carefully and correctly. It may feel tedious and time-consuming, but it’s worth the headache you’ll save down the road.
However, no matter how diligent you may be, sometimes outside events can create a situation where your information is no longer consistent.

What Commonly Leads to Conflicting Information?

Even if you were extra careful when you originally created and filled out your listings, you may still find there’s a substantial amount of conflicting information out there. What could explain this?

You made typos or other manual errors.
You recently moved locations.
You recently changed phone numbers.
You previously worked with an online advertiser who left your listings in shambles.
You previously engaged in spam-like activity.
A directory auto-generated a listing for you using incomplete information from one of your listings on another site.
Someone (maybe a customer or a competitor) edited one of your listings on your behalf.

What Can You Do to Fix It?

Let’s start with a dose of honesty: Some of these fixes will be easier than others.
For instance, if it’s simply a matter of updating your listings after you moved locations or changed phone numbers, then you can easily fix those problems yourself. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to log in to all of your accounts and update the information accordingly. (Pro tip: Keep a running list of all the sites your business is listed on, including log-in information for each. Doing so will make this process much, much easier in the future.)
However, things get trickier when you’re trying to track down conflicting information you don’t even know about. If you worked with an online advertiser in the past, they might have left all of your old information up when you quit without giving you any indication of where it lives on the web. Similarly, if a third party sneakily edited one of your listings without your knowledge, you’ll be pretty much in the dark.
In these trickier cases, you have two options: Devote numerous hours to tracking down all of your listings and checking each one, line by line, for mismatching information—or pay someone else to do it for you. Many online advertisers offer affordable, one-time services designed to search for red flags and clean up conflicting information on your behalf. The initial search is typically performed by an automated system, while the cleanup is done manually by a specialist.
After calculating how much their time and sanity are worth, many business owners decide that hiring a specialist is worth it.

Regular “Maintenance” Is Key

It’s easy to feel like your online presence is out of your hands, but there are simple things you can do to take back some control. Avoiding inconsistent information is one of them. It’s an effective way to fulfill Google’s need to provide top-quality information to its users. When all of your facts are matching, Google won’t doubt you.
Keep tabs on all of your listings and correct mistakes as soon as you see them. It’s like car maintenance: You don’t have to change your tires or oil all the time, but you need to check them regularly so you can catch and fix problems as soon as possible. If you need to, invest in an advertising specialist who can help you with this maintenance. Whatever you do, keeping all of your information matching across the board is vital to the stability of your online presence.

Why You Should Give Your Company E-Mail Address a Makeover

Last Updated: December 17, 2015

Is an unprofessional e-mail address holding you back?
It’s a common refrain for job seekers, as unprofessional e-mail addresses on resumes can make prospective employers think twice about hiring them. But did you know that it can have the same effect on prospective customers seeking local service providers? An unprofessional e-mail address might convince them not to do business with you.
At the same time, Google has rolled out new procedures for claiming business listings that require business owners to have e-mail addresses with corporate domains. Without one, the process is much more time-consuming and complicated.
That means a professional e-mail address won’t just help you attract new customers—it will also streamline your online advertising efforts with Google. You might not have given your e-mail address much thought up until now, but it could make a world of difference for your business.

Have an Easier Time Dealing With Google

First, let’s discuss the new Google policies that make this upgrade a little more urgent.
Google has changed how they let you claim a listing. It used to be that when you had an advertiser trying to claim a listing on your behalf, Google would automatically call you for verification. Now, however, Google requests verification from you (the business owner) via e-mail (unless otherwise prompted by a phone call from your advertiser). But it can’t just be any e-mail: Google needs to receive an e-mail stating that you authorize “X” company to manage your listing, and this e-mail must come from an address on a corporate domain.

What’s a Corporate Domain Anyway?

What do we mean by “corporate domain”? Well, a domain is what a user types into their browser in order to visit a specific website. It usually ends with “.com,” “.gov,” “.org,” “.net,” etc. So, a corporate domain is a domain that contains a given business’s name. For example, Bob’s Appliance’s corporate domain would be “bobsappliance.com” or something similar.
Thus, Google would want to see an e-mail from “bob@bobsappliance.com” when authorizing a third party to claim and/or manage that company’s listing. This is a way for Google to safeguard against spam: An e-mail from a corporate domain proves that an actual owner or employee of the business is the one e-mailing them.
It’s not impossible to claim a listing or transition management without a corporate domain, but it’s a longer and more convoluted process involving a lot of back-and-forth phone calls. You’ll have a much faster resolution with Google if you can simply e-mail them from a business domain. This is an especially important point if you’re switching or planning on switching SEO providers.

What to Do:

Set up at least one e-mail address on your domain that you can send e-mails from to prove that it’s you when you’re claiming or verifying your listing. Google wants to talk to you and wants to know that it’s you.
Always maintain ownership of your listing and just make your advertiser the manager. This way, Google will always know that you’re the verified owner.

Don’t have your own corporate domain? Not sure how to get one? Talk to your advertiser. Most advertisers will be able to provide you with one; if not, they’ll be able to point you toward the correct resources. Either way, you’ll need to coordinate with your advertiser before creating a new domain. And if your advertiser has already built and optimized a website for you (like Prospect Genius’s LeadTrax™ sites), you can still register your own domain and have your advertiser connect the two.
If you’re doing it all yourself, here’s a good place to start.

Make Yourself More Attractive to Customers

Now let’s look at this from a marketing standpoint.
Pretend you’re a local homeowner looking to hire an appliance repairman to fix your fridge. When presented with these two e-mail addresses, which one would you choose to contact for the job?

BobbyB5287@aol.com
bob@bobsappliance.com

Most homeowners would choose the second one, as it appears much more legitimate. Even if it’s only a one-man operation, an e-mail address from “bobsappliance.com” makes the business look much bigger. That’s what prospective customers want to see.

Legitimize Your Business

Whether it’s Google or prospective customers, people like seeing a professional e-mail address. It makes your business look more legitimate, which is helpful for resolving issues with your Google listing and marketing yourself online. Your business’s success will only increase when you upgrade your e-mail address with a corporate domain, so take action now.
In the mood for a laugh? Check out The Oatmeal’s comic, “What your email address says about your computer skills.”

No, Fake Reviews Are Not Harmless

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

You keep hearing about how important it is to have customer reviews on your Google, Yelp, and Facebook listings. In fact, a majority of what you’ve heard has probably come straight from us. After all, we’re always harping on the fact that customer reviews are crucial because they improve your SEO and make you more appealing to prospective customers. So after reading about customer reviews for the umpteenth time, you start feeling a little insecure about the lack of reviews on your own listing. You think, Why don’t I just take matters into my own hands? And you decide to write some fake reviews yourself.

Writing fake customer reviews may seem harmless on the surface, but there can be some seriously negative consequences. When you post fake reviews—whether on your own listing or another company’s—it’s not a matter of if you’ll get caught, but when. Google and other review sites know your IP address and will inevitably connect you to the fake review.
However, it’s true that the circumstances surrounding fake reviews can vary, and so will the penalties for getting caught. In this post, we’ll explain the three major types of fake customer reviews and their typical consequences. Then, we’ll give you some tips on how to get real customer reviews the honest way, instead.

The Unintentional Fake Review

Sometimes, a business owner unwittingly posts on their own Google or Yelp listing using their own username. This usually happens when a business owner intended to post a review anonymously (under the pretense of a customer) but forgot that they were signed in to their account.
With this type of fake review, the potential damage is minimal because it was less of a deception and more of a mistake. Most customers will notice that the review came from the owner of the business and ignore it. Eventually, Google or Yelp might delete it.

The Anonymous, Self-Promotional Review

In this type of fake review, a business owner poses as a customer on their own listing by writing a review anonymously or by creating a new account for a fictional person. These reviews are always positive, with the intention of boosting that business’s overall ratings. If you don’t get caught, this kind of review could give you a small boost.
But this is where we remind you that Google will catch you. It knows your IP address. It will easily notice if a post appears on your listing from your own computer. When you’re caught, your listing will be suspended temporarily and your business will be penalized in the search rankings. And if you continue this behavior once your penalty is lifted, Google could actually ban you completely. Is it really worth the risk?

The Vengeful Fake Review

The final, and most damaging, type of fake review involves the business owner posing as a customer on another business’s listing. These reviews are overwhelmingly negative, and they’re usually done to a direct competitor as a way to bring down their ratings.
These reviews have the harshest penalties because their intent is purely malicious. If Google catches you, your listing could be banned, and you could be kept from ever leaving reviews on Google again. And since there’s no direct benefit to your business (it only hurts another business), this type of review is not worth the backlash, plain and simple.

Get Reviews the Honest Way

Why go through the trouble of writing fake customer reviews and risking serious penalties when you can get real ones, instead? It takes a little more effort upfront to get real customer reviews, but they’ll make your business’s listings much more stable and appealing in the long run. Here are some ideas:

If you’ve done any work for family or friends in the past, ask them to leave you a review. They’ll be happy to help you out. Just make sure they don’t write their reviews from the same house! Reviews coming from the same IP address will be flagged.
Target any customers who have a Gmail address. It’s super fast and easy for Gmail users to leave reviews on your Google listing because they’ll already be logged in to their account. To make it as easy as possible, provide them with a direct link and brief instructions on how to post a review.
Use a professional service that keeps track of your customers and calls or e-mails them to ask for reviews on your behalf. Although we do not endorse any specific company, we know that some of our clients use Customer Lobby with good results.
Leverage the on-page feedback feature available from Prospect Genius. Customers can use this to leave a review right on your site, and then (if the review is positive) they’ll be given links to your Facebook and Google listings so they can spread their reviews even further. This feature is nice and simple because it’s just a link on your LeadTrax™ site—it doesn’t require customers to have an existing account.
Check out more helpful tips for getting the most customer reviews possible in our blog post, “Make Your Presence Known: Get More Customer Reviews Online.”

Writing fake customer reviews, no matter what the circumstances, is never worth the risk of penalization or suspension. Instead, use the tips outlined above to get more customer reviews that are actually honest and helpful. You’ll thank yourself for the effort!
As always, don’t hesitate to contact Prospect Genius with any questions.

Prospect Genius

One Simple Way to Take Control of Your Online Presence

Why Is Conflicting Information Problematic?

What Does Conflicting Information Look Like?

What Commonly Leads to Conflicting Information?

What Can You Do to Fix It?

Regular “Maintenance” Is Key

Why You Should Give Your Company E-Mail Address a Makeover

Have an Easier Time Dealing With Google

What’s a Corporate Domain Anyway?

What to Do:

Make Yourself More Attractive to Customers

Legitimize Your Business

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