Earlier this week Google updated their search algorithms to boost “the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results.” What does this mean?

Well, for the small business owner with a website that you’ve already spent an arm and a leg to get up and running – start here: Test your website with the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. If it says you’re friendly then calm down, it means you’re totally fine. If it says you aren’t, follow the instructions for whatever your website is designed in. Google is really helpful here, they WANT you to be mobile friendly.

Talk to your web developer, hopefully they already reached out to you with a heads up that this was happening. I told all my clients what was going on and we’ve decided with each client what the plan is. Some have updated and revised their theme to be responsive. Some are going to wait it out and see how these updates are really effecting their traffic, and some are figuring out if it’s in the budget to get it updated.

The point of all this is, Google thinks mobile is important because mobile is important! Your website needs to be easy to view and interact with on my phone or tablet. If you have a location I need to be able to easily call you or get your address so I can get to you. If my phone can’t get me there easily I’ll go elsewhere.

This is also an excellent time to remind you to make sure you have set up a Google+ account for your business. AND while you’re at it setup a Bing Places page. The perk of Bing Places is you just need to set it up, you don’t need to update it. With Google+ you can and should update your pages on a regular basis. I have my blog posts auto-post to my G+ pages (business & personal) and I find I get traffic from them since it’s not overwhelmed with content like other social media outlets.

Welcome to the next wave of your website. Make it mobile, make it social, and make sure that all that money you spent on your website wasn’t for nothing!

We all know my love of pop culture, so on Sunday morning when I heard that the main “character” on The Jinx, an HBO docu-series was arrested in New Orleans, I became curious. I read a bit more about how in last weeks episode there was a pretty big reveal and so I marathoned the 5 episodes, then watched the finale as it aired. HOLY HELL. The guy confesses  to 3 murders when he doesn’t realize his mic is on. WOW. And so the internet blew up and the documentarian is THE hot interview of the moment.

What does this have to do with small business marketing?

Well, hopefully you don’t employ someone who has gotten away with 3 murders (well, until last weekend…), but I have had a number of clients where something happened and there was an opportunity to respond (remember the Go Daddy/Elephant hunting thing? yeah, lots of missed opportunity…) and they were too busy or didn’t have systems in place to do so.

Seize the moment when opportunity knocks.

Is a big name competitor under fire for unethical practices? Make sure your target market knows your ethics standards- share them in a blog post or newsletter.

Did a TV show talk about something you do and it’s the talk of the town? Make sure to promote your zombie survival products more prominently on social media and get your SEO up to speed.

Can you do the same thing (but better) than the latest viral post? Make sure people know!

Your network can’t help you if they don’t know what you do or how they can help you. Yes you’ve told them time and again what you do, but until it’s relevant and in their face, they aren’t going to remember. And make sure the mic is off when the interview is over.