Andy McIlwain

"Obviously, if you can handle running a blog and social networking, the easy answer is “both,” but there are situations where one is more suitable than the other." - Andy McIlwain

Search Engine Land: "If you’re not already tapping into social media, you should, as the channel offers brands tremendous opportunities to foster community and engagement. But many marketers jump into social media efforts with little more than a “cool” idea. This is a mistake." - Andy McIlwain

Barry Schwartz: "Why don't we offer SEO services? I have been asked this question time and time again. It is not like I don't know a thing or two about the topic. Hint: Read my bio. So why don't we offer typical SEO services? A few reasons..." - Andy McIlwain

From Danny Sullivan: "Just as SEO does not equal spam, it also does not equal just making sure your web pages are search engine friendly. SEO these days also covers things like video search, local search and blog search." - Andy McIlwain

We all know that one of the keys to great SEO is making sure you keep your website updated, new and fresh. Weather you do this with a blog, or you change your homepage with new offers, coupons or new products, it serves to show Google that your site is ‘alive’. For many small businesses in particular, this is a real challenge. - Andy McIlwain

Search is where the customers are. Surely every business owner, large or small, understands by now the importance of appearing before these customers in search. Surely. But as I’ve looked for local businesses to help with my needs after a recent move, I’ve had a personal reminder of just how far behind some companies remain. - Andy McIlwain

Search engines, and SEO today, aren’t just about web pages. That’s why when Derek rants that SEO is just some web developer’s job, he exposes a real lack of knowledge of the current state of SEO itself. In turn, frankly, he’s not giving out good advice. - Andy McIlwain

Now there is a way for local business owners to get a better understanding of how customers are finding their business. Did they search for "new car" or "test drive" to get to the listing for the showroom? What happens to traffic to the new showroom when your client starts advertising in the local paper? Do they drive miles for your client’s service? With this information, you'd be able to make better informed planning decisions on how to drive more traffic to your client’s listing and attract more customers. - Andy McIlwain

Large corporations have had various “buzz tracking” tools at their disposal to monitor “brand chatter” but these have not been available for SMBs. Marchex has now created a comprehensive reputation management tool aimed at the SMB market that enables monitoring of virtually everything being said about them online via a single dashboard. - Andy McIlwain

According to a study commissioned by Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing company, 54 percent of U.S. companies say they’ve banned workers from using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, while on the job. The study, released today, also found that 19 percent of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16 percent allow limited personal use. - Andy McIlwain

Instead of stealing, I would call this something else: a free service that drives lots of readers to news Web sites that wouldn't get nearly as much traffic, if any at all, if Google didn't link to their sites for free. That may not be as pithy as crying "thief!" But it has the advantage of being true. - Andy McIlwain

Google takes pride in its ability to retain data; Sergey Brin has an op-ed in the New York Times today holding Google servers up as more durable than the ancient Library at Alexandria. Meanwhile, every police department and district attorney's office in the country knows they can extract valuable data from the company. - Andy McIlwain

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Not Seen as Helpful to Build Small Businesses - Small Businesses Rely on Search Engines Over Social Media - Andy McIlwain

You’ll learn how to search the bios of other Twitter users, how to search deeper into Twitter’s archives, and how to find jobs advertised on Twitter. - Andy McIlwain

If you’ve ever wished that you could engineer the Google Maps interface to highlight and display your local content, My Maps could be something of a dream-come-true. - Andy McIlwain