Free Vocal 411 From Google! 1-800-GOOG-411

I love GOOG 411! A little news flash in my Gmail told me about Google's new free 411 service for businesses currently percolating in their Google Labs. I called from my internet based (Vonage) land line, and the nicest mechanical man asked me: "What business name or category?" and without thinking, I just said "restaurant" and then it asked me which intersection or zip code. I wanted the number for a Joey's Pizza in Chagrin Falls, OH to see if it came up, but all I could think to say was "44022".

Not two seconds later, the man at GOOG 411 was giving me the top 8 results, starting with the very yummy Gamekeepers Tavern as a restaurant in or near 44022. Joey's Pizza was in there, as was Dinks. I tried "pizza" for 10025 in New York, and it really didn't have any pizza listings. That, or it could not understand me above my fan.

Next, I tried a direct search for Joey's Pizza. I started with "Cleveland, OH." I did not get a direct match. But clearly it was there. I tried "Moreland Hills, OH," but instead it gave me related listings, which included "Boston Market." Errr. Wrong. So then when GOOG asked me for my city and state, I gave the zip code of 44022 and stated the restaurant name. Bingo.

Extra Fun Things About Free GOOG 411:

• You can "Go Back" to go back to the place you were before. Then the GOOG Man says: "Going Back."
• Instead of a machine tinkering away after you say something, to indicate that it is thinking, a little guy is making machine noises, like "bleep dee dee bleep." And if there is a problem with what he is looking up, it will go "bleep dee dee bleep bloop bloop CONK CONK" and the GOOG Man says: "Let's just skip that part."
• You can just keep looking things up by saying "Go Back."
• The GOOG Man reads to you the address right away. He can connect you or give you more details, like recite the phone number.
• When you have found your number and you're on your mobile phone, you can just say "text message" and it will text message you (GOOG knows your mobile number) while it is connecting you to the place!

How GOOG 411 Helps Your Website SEO

To be included in GOOG 411, you need to submit your business to Google Local. Being included in Google Local gives you more chances of rising to the top in the search engines when someone does a search for your type of business and the Google Local results are displayed before all else. See this local Starbucks example. And don't forget: on Apple's new iPhone, that uses Google Maps to provide maps to phone user, the same thing is presented. So when a person is actually in their car looking to go somewhere, and they type in a search for your type of business in the local area, you will come up as a little red arrow pointing to exactly where you are, with phone number clearly displayed. My boyfriend and I just did it to find local golf stores in Portland, Maine because he was consumed with buying a (another) driver. So go submit yourself!

To use Google's free 411 service, dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone. There are still listings that are not in there. I checked for some local ones around our apartment. This may mean that the businesses need to enter themselves into Google Local, which used to just help with Internet searches. But now it also helps for free and fast 411. To add your business into Google Local, click here. Here are some good FAQs about GOOG 411. Residential 411 is not included as of this post.

Google Personal Pages

I've come accross great instructions on how to create a Google Personal Page. She said it much better than I would have, so here it is:

I don't know how many of you guys use a google personal page or a Yahoo personal page, for that matter... but you can "site feed" the blog to your personal page.

To get a google personal page: ( if you use a google email service ( gmail)or, if you want to start using that service)
http://www.google.com/ig
sign in ( or start a new account)
click on " Add Content"
( you can add all different kinds of newspaper links, stocks, sports, weather, and have them personalized to your preferences, etc.)
go to " create a section"
paste the following into the space: http://whateverURLyouwant/atom.xml
(you'll need that URL to have the /atom.xml at the end of it in order to see new posts to blogs automatically.)

this will make it so when you go to your google personal page, the newest blog entries will be there in their own little section, you can click on them and go straight to the blog.

Easy as pie. Blueberry.

How Will Google Find My Blog?

Google will definitely find your blog when another website links to you. Yahoo, Google, MSN and other search engines work in simular ways. A search engine like Google will find your blog and rate it according to how many links point to it, as well as relevant content within its pages. Therefore, in theory, you don't need to submit your blog to a search engine directory (and you should never pay one to have your blog included - search engines do not work that way, Google doesn't at least). But it doesn't hurt and is painless.

When you're blog is in a place you're satisfied with, I recomend you submit it to two places: straight to Google and to the human edited directory, dmoz. If you submit your blog to dmoz, make sure you select the right category (there's lots of them). Google may include your blog in future spiders (it's not 100%, but is likely), and a person at dmoz will one day come over and check your blog and add it if he/she likes to that directory. Dmoz does give blog and website information to Google, Yahoo and others, so you may as well submit. I'm no expert on dmoz, I just know it is recomended by bloggers to submit to it.

Because you've selected in your settings to have each post be a page, each post is qualified to come up in a search engine result for whatever you wrote about, be it "seychelles wedges" or "kadorables t-shirts." So when you're writing each post, think about what search terms a user might type into Google's search box (or another search engine) when looking for something specific. Yahoo has a great tool you can use called Overture. This was built for websites who want pay-per-click advertising on their sites. It measures what search terms are being plugged into Yahoo every month. So Overture is a free and easy to use tool to check if a phrase is being searched in search engines. Your blog has a good chance of showing up in these search results if you write your posts tightly around a phrase.

But, the bottom line is, you will rank higher in search results if you 1. have links poinint to your blog or specific posts on your blog and 2. 'optimized content' is written tightly into your posts - for those posts you want to rank for (or be found for), that is.

May the search engines be with you!