For weeks, I’ve been quietly preparing to have a Google Search Strategy Webinar for my subscribers, blog readers and social media family. It’s tomorrow at 1 pm, and if you can’t make it, it’s going to be recorded. You don’t want to miss this.

There’s just no denying that Google is still one of the titans of traffic. They aren’t the only one, for sure, not any more.

But let me ask you this – if you were selling a book, would you only want it to be available on Amazon?

Or would you want it to be available:

• directly from you
• in a local bookstore like Barnes & Noble or Borders
• at speaking events
• in a Walmart or a Target

…. in other words, wouldn’t you want your book to be available to anyone, anywhere?

Facebook may be catching up to Google in delivering page views, but ignoring Google and putting all your eggs in the social media basket is a mistake too. With a little extra effort, you can get traffic from mobile, video, local searches, news – there’s so much money you leave on the table by not appearing in every possible corner of Google.

At the Google Search Strategy webinar, I’m going to tell you what you may have missed this past year that is already making a real difference in increasing traffic, and where the low-hanging fruit is.

Here’s a short list of what’s being covered:

* What is Google HotPot, and Why Should You Change Your Google Strategy to Exploit It – Even If Your Business is Completely Online?

* Why It’s Irrelevant that Facebook drives more pageviews than Google, andhow you can benefit from the PR War between these companies

* The Easiest Traffic to Get From Google and Tips on How to Get It Fast

* Three Ways Even Online Businesses Can Take Advantage of Google Local via Google Places

* The Top Trends to Watch in Google from now to 2013 (assuming the world doesn’t end in 2012, LOL)

* Proper Keyword Targeting – How to Use Three Inexpensive Tools to Make Sure You Can Rank for a Keyword

* How to Know For Sure How Much Traffic You Can Expect From a Keyword – Hint: Google’s tool CANNOT tell you this Accurately Unless You Are Buying Traffic!

* The Ten Point System to Mastering Google from now to 2012

* Simple Search Engine Optimization for Blog and Blog Posts in WordPress – You Can Follow Along On-Screen!
*Live Q and A Session
* Post-call Q and A Session

You can click here to sign up  today. Each ticket comes with $400 in bonuses for the next 24 hours, so you can learn at your own pace – or get 2010 pricing all of next year if you’d like my team to help you get the resuls we’ll be discussing. Hope to see you there.

This is video footage of the Grow Smart Business Conference panel I was on, “Search, Content and the Search Engine Sword Over Your Head“, provided by YayaStream.

We mostly answered the most frequently asked questions floating around lately in search at first (Ben came up with those, I think he did a fine job.) Then we turned it over to audience questions.

From left to right, my fellow search panelists are:

• Li Evans,(@storyspinner)
• Deborah Ager (@clickwisdom)
• Alan Glazier (@EyeInfo)
• Ben Cook (@Skitzzo) (the Moderator, if you were there and don’t remember seeing him seated. ;-D)

And that’s me seated between Alan and Ben.

As if you could miss me.

I’m thinking of having this transcribed, but that all depends on demand. Retweet or comment below if you want a transcribed version.

The Network Solutions sponsored TwitterChat I was talking about last week is today at 1 pm Eastern/New York time, and will last until 2:30 pm or until we get to as many questions as possible.

Highlights:

1. The event is completely free. .

No charge, really.

2. All you have to do is click here to register for Keep Them Coming! How to Increase Traffic to your Website.

(Both web traffic and SEO will be discussed.)

Update: Two prizes are being given to registered attendees.

One will be a free prize from me. The other is a surprise. One is a random registered attendee, the other is to the registered attendee with the best question.

3. Every person who registers, even if they can’t attend at the last minute, is getting a special freebie to help with their Web Traffic.

And no, it’s not 366 Traffic Methods.

4. Free tips on search engine optimization

Answering questions like “Why is SEO critical to increasing web traffic?”

5. Free tips on web traffic

Key information, such as: “Top 10 tips on how to increase web traffic”

6. You get to send me questions through the moderator.

I won’t be answering any questions about naked pictures, or accepting marriage proposals. Stay on Topic, People!

If you’re a Twitter Chat newbie, there are some tips on the post about the Women Grow Business Inbound Marketing Twitter Chat from April.

You don’t need  a free Twitter account to attend, but that sure makes it a lot more fun.

One more thing. I have a bet going with someone that I can get 100 people to register and attend.

So if you know people on Twitter or Facebook who you think would enjoy this free session or help save them money in their business, retweet this message or share it on Facebook. You can even email it your subscribers, or republish this whole post on your blog.

I’ll owe you one retweet or Facebook share that you cash in tomorrow morning, if

1. you’re one of the first 12 people, and
2. you respond to this message with your Twitter handle  so I can make arrangements with you.

Google recently announced that the new look they’ve been testing since last year was rolled out to everyone. There’s a new mobile look too. And there’s one important thing you as a business owner should know about what most are announcing as a change to the Google search engine results pages.

It’s not just a facelift.

The New Google has implemented fundamental yet subtle shifts that they’ve been making over the past few years, including features from successful beta testing they did.

This can affect your business in one of two ways. Either you can lose traffic to competitors who may not even know what they’re doing right to get extra traffic, or you can educate yourself about what’s different, then position yourself to take advantage of the changes.

In case you don’t know my philosophy about getting better exposure and rankings in search, here it is in a nutshell: work with the search engines, not against them. Instead of trying to cheat with spammy methods that don’t provide any real benefit to people who may find your content, find out what the search engines need most and provide it.

Therefore, these tips aren’t going to include anything black hat or prohibited in any way by Google.

1- Fill out your Google profile.
http://www.google.com/profiles

At first glance, this probably seems like a strange thing to suggest. But your profile in Google is increasing in importance. I’m not claiming that this is a ranking factor, not at all. However, it can help you get additional exposure and not just through Google Buzz.

Google Social Search, also a Google Labs graduate, is live in the main Google search when you’re logged in to Google. When you fill out your Google profile and include links to your site, your YouTube account, Twitter account, etc., you will begin to get suggestions Google has found from the relevant content of friends and acquaintances you’re connected to online through social media, and vice-versa.

That means a site you referenced in your Google profile can appear at the bottom of the first page of results for a logged in user of Google. Not necessarily a huge bump if you have a small network, but not a bad bit of free traffic in exchange for a few minutes of work.

2- Sign up for Google Places – even if you’re an entrepreneur or micro-business.

http://www.google.com/local/add/

Google Local results have been showing up in Google results for some time now, but with the revamped Google Local Business Center, now renamed Google Places, have come some important enhancements that are smoothly integrated in the new Google.

Not only that, the new version includes not just basic information such as location and phone number, but photos, audio, video, coupons, real-time updates, even Product Listings.

There’s not enough space here to detail all the great new things you can add to enhance your business presence for free on Google, but even if it didn’t help you show up properly under the “Maps” or “Nearby” section of relevant searches in Google, it would be worth it.

Extra tip: No matter what size your business, as long as you have a location with a street address outside your home, it is likely worth adding to Google Places. Do some keyword research and try out your search in Google to see if the free listing would be worthwhile.

3- Re-purpose content you already have to fit into more spots in the New Google.

In past years, perhaps it made sense to focus most of your efforts on the text-based version of Google search. After all, not all searchers are savvy, and most of the focus at the time was placed on the main Google web search.

Fast-forward to the age of dynamic information, with images, blogs, status updates, podcasts, videos, RSS and Atom feeds. Now there are all kinds of ways you may be discovered in search, and many of them may not even be on your site.

Take video for example. Even the camera-shy can benefit from the easier, faster rankings videos often get in Google by using video screen capture, animations or slideshow presentations converted to video.

Take that article you wrote, turn it into a PowerPoint presentation, set it to music, or better yet, narrate a presentation. Then publish it as a video, pop it on a few video sites, add it to your podcasts, and track your traffic. You may see a measurable difference in traffic or rankings that’s worth the extra bit of work.

Participate in some Q and A sites and get your answers ranked under discussions.

Write a blog post or submit a press release to get a ranking in the News or Blogs section. The more content you have available in more formats, the higher your chances of discovery.

4- Make sure you’re aware of every opportunity to get on the first page or rank number one.

While you’re re-purposing content to show up under the other menu sections in the new Google search results pages, consider this: there are now a multitude of ways to get ranked on the first page in Google, and they vary from listing to listing.

Sometimes the top ranked content is a video. Others don’t have video at all, but they do have the latest tweets scrolling on the first page.

Sometimes an image would help – it may not be the top ranking, but on the search results page it’s the easiest one to get. Other times it may be a news story, or a well-linked blog post. Pull up the terms you want to rank for in Google and see what the top content is.

Evaluate your competition and see what you could do better – or how you could buy prime advertising spots on their web site- not every keyword competitor is a market competitor. Some sites offer content instead of products, in hopes of getting business people like you to advertise.

Next time you’re at Google, do a quick search on your name, your favorite hobby, and the keywords you want your business to rank for – you may or may not like the new look to the results page in Google.

Just remember that the real issue isn’t whether you find the new Google style aesthetically pleasing – it’s how you can make these changes in Google benefit you.

It makes sense that if you’re optimizing your site for search engines that you also get the most you possibly can out of your search engine optimization. And if you’re not optimizing your site for list building, you’re only doing half of the job at best.

You see, getting a lot of traffic isn’t meaningful if the visitors that come to your site aren’t directed anywhere in particular. There’s no need for you to do so aggressively if that doesn’t work for your site, but it IS necessary that you build a path from search engine visitors to, at minimum, signing up for your newsletter.

Let me give you an example.

If you’re getting 1000 new visitors that typically result in ten $100 sales, and you’re not making any special effort to capture visitors, you may think you’re doing just fine.

And you are. That’s a one percent conversion rate from visitors to sales, slightly below the average, $1000 for every 1000 visitors.

But if your rate of getting subscribers from 1000 visitors is 10 percent, or 100, even if the conversion rate is the same, that’s still a 10 percent increase in sales from the same 1000 visitors.

That’s a modest example, because subscribers are often more likely to buy – they often sign up to remind themselves to buy an item after researching, or closer to payday. It’s much more likely to produce a ten percent increase in sales, which would be ten more sales, and that would be double the sales, or $2000!

Now, that’s not always the case, but on the occasions that it is, that’s reason enough to incorporate a list optimized site into your search engine plan.

In the previous post in the Getting Traffic from Google News series, we discussed how to get traffic from Google via Google News by leveraging the various ways to appear in a publication that is already featured in Google News.

Now, let’s talk about the holy grail of Google News exposure – having your site BE a source of news for your topic in the Google News database.  If you’d like to be one of the 25,000 publishers that is sharing 1 billion clicks a month, this just might be for you.

Can Any Site Get Into Google News?

I saved the best scenario for last because, quite frankly, it’s also the hardest to do. It’s not as easy to get into as Google web search. As much as that may sound like a contradiction in terms, you have a MUCH better chance of getting your site into Google’s web search database than into Google’s news site database.

And that’s simply because most sites aren’t news sites, and neither are they news-worthy.

But.

If your site breaks news in your industry, has unique content that isn’t published anywhere else, or has a unique slant on the news, under certain circumstances, your site could be a Google News source.

Let’s look at the official path to becoming a Google News site, then we’ll come back and talk about some tips from one of my favorite sources of search related news.

How to Become a Google News Site, The Official Version

When you decide you want to become a Google News publisher, the first thing you’ll have to decide is whether you’re going to change your current site to meet their guidelines, or whether to start a brand-new site.

Most people are going to start new sites, as Google has some very specific technical requirements for becoming a Google News site, as you’ll see on their help page for Google News publisher hopefuls.

Should you submit once you meet the requirements? Technically you could. But I’d say not so fast. Why just be technically ready when you can demonstrate through your site that your site truly is influential and worth of being included in Google News?

A human being will actually have to take a look at your site and decide whether or not to consider you. Put your best foot forward.

How?

How to Get Into Google News Addendum with My Own Wild Theories and Specultion

I’ve been in several publications that appear in Google news as news sources, but have yet to create one myself, mostly due to time constraints and lack of adequate staffing for my own company, never mind a publication. So take my words with that in mind.

For what it’s worth though, this is my advice, based on what I’ve observed and the applied knowledge I have from helping clients get ranked in Google’s web database and get exposure in other Google web properties over the years.

First, you may want to take a look at the different niches within the site by browsing the categories and popular stories on the Google News home page. Study them and get a feel for what news sites are like.

Second, fill the content deficit. Is there a region you represent that isn’t listed? Is there a niche in your industry that only has a handful of sources? Or do you have better access to news or events than some other publication?

Third, take the advice of other sites that have tried, whether they have failed or succeeded. We’ll come back to that in a sec.

After the Submission Form – Valuable Clues From Also-Rans

For now, let’s just say that you’re sure your site is up to snuff, then you can proceed to the submissions form for Google News. Remember, they are going to be looking at your site, and it may not be simple technical proficiency that gets you listed.

Remember I mentioned that you can learn from others who have tried to get into Google News?

According to a Rejection Letter from Google News that appeared in Search Engine Roundtable, here are a few reasons that you’re not likely to get into Google News.

If your publication does not:

1. Publish news
2. Publish daily
3. Have a staff of writers and editors, rather than one individual,
4. Represent an organization rather than a person,
5. Display both general and contact information for the organization

- it looks like you can expect to be rejected.

What does that mean for you? Make sure you meet those items just in case,  so there won’t be a problem to begin with. Good luck getting into Google News. If you make it, I would totally make myself available for a staff writer position.

Which I’ll then tell the entire free world about.

Hint. Hint.

Additional Resources:

Getting Into Google News Revisited, from Search Engine Roundtable

How to Get Into Google News, from The Online Journalism Review

The Google News Blog. That  article e where they tell you that there are 25,000 publishers in Google News is still on the front pag. If that sounds like a lot, compare that to the billions of web pages they’ve indexed in their search engine.

There are several basic low-budget and no-budget ways that websites and web publications can get reasonably expect to more exposure in 2010.

While the objective remains the same – get in your prospects email, search, news or related favorite online hangouts – the methods by which you’ll be achieving those objectives shift from year to year.

1. Leverage Business Relationships
2. Create Affiliate-Powered or Referral-Powered Promotions with Incentives
3. Get Ranked Well in Google and Yahoo/Bing
4. Leverage Other minor Google/Yahoo properties for better search and direct traffic
5. Get Regular Exposure in Google News
6. Build Great Blogger Relationships (whether or not you’re presently a blogger)
7. Get Click Traffic from Twitter, Ping.Fm, and other more topical status update tools, or more audience-focused  micro-blogging applications
8. Get Click Traffic, Article Views and Build Relationships Both Within and Around Facebook and other Social Networking Applications
9. Get Publicity in Other Major Publications and Mid-Level Industry Publications
10. Create a Video Following
11. Create a Podcast Following
12. Shift Towards Bizstreaming (without dropping Blogging)
13. Integrate document sharing, slidecasting, and other multi-media social sharing tools
14. Find or Found Appropriate Community Networks that integrate online tools with offline life
15. Tighten-up In-house interest lists, follow-up, intro offers and backend sale
16. Value-exchanges for attention, based in social currency on the social media sites that are built for content exposure, such as StumbleUpon
17. Economically-sound Advertising

Throughout January we’ll be dedicating anywhere from a couple of days to an  entire week on all of these topics, then we’ll come back and re-cap with a round-up and links to more resources.

Until then, the one thing you need to remember about traffic is the same thing as before: the game hasn’t changed – the tools are just getting better.

“Local search is an important priority for us, and we’re focused on helping businesses be discovered and helping consumers find the right local business,” a Google spokesperson told ITBusiness.ca in an e-mail interview. “One key component of that is the Local Business Center to allow business owners to have control over their listing.”

If you’re running a business and still believe that Yellow Pages is more reliable for a local listing than Google, this article might make you think twice.

Google News is without a doubt the reason why we where we are today.  And, the social networking aspect of Google News has helped us tremendously.

Joe Vallee and Dennis Bakay measure the impact Google, Facebook and Twitter have had on social networking for websites. If its traffic you’re after, this makes for an interesting read.

The difference between how Facebook and Google have addressed privacy issues offers a stark contrast. While Facebook has quickly responded to criticism and backlash, and has implemented additional changes to try and accommodate concerns, Google CEO Eric Schmidt dismissed privacy concerns entirely.

Tony Bradley compares the approaches taken by both Google and Facebook with regards to online privacy; something that every online business has to take very seriously.

This fall we’ve seen lots of government agencies decide to make the switch to cloud computing, joining the many businesses already using Google Apps for email and collaboration at work. Today we’d like to officially welcome another customer to the mix: the City of Los Angeles. Starting today, Los Angeles will be equipping 34,000 city employees with Google Apps for email and collaboration in the cloud.

If you can take a valuable hint, Google is probably pointing the way to cloud computing as the more cost-effective way of spending your IT budget.