Online marketing can be tiring! That’s where UpCity comes in. As a trusted advocate for small businesses, we’re here to navigate you through the piles of confusing and suspicious offers. UpCity will lead you in the right direction by providing easy insights and simple solutions for your business marketing plan. Members receives an in-depth, personalized action plan to help optimize their site, and our team is here to help you along the way.  Each week, we’re featuring an in-depth look at one of the recommended tasks built into the UpCity software.

Background

The WordPress platform is built to be simple, yet with robust functionalities. However, WordPress does have its complexities and limitations that can be supplemented through the installation of plugins. Plugins are tools to increase or extend the functionality of WordPress. Plugins can also be very helpful for beginner marketers. Yoast offers one plugin that enhances your ability to make quick SEO changes to your website.

Yoast is one of the most popular creators of SEO plugins for WordPress. It provides a wide range of free and paid premium plugins. All Yoast plugins are built around one core and essential plugin, the WordPress SEO plugin. As a respected innovator in the website optimization field, Yoast also provides consulting and optimization tips for large and small businesses.

This blog post gives you an easy outline on how to install the popular Yoast SEO plugin on your WordPress website.

Process

Step 1: To install the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, you will need to login into your WordPress account. Then, add “/wp-admin” to your domain name in the address bar and press enter.

Step 2: Enter your WordPress username and password on the log-in screen.

Step 3: After you are logged into your account, locate the Plugins menu on the left hand side, and click on it.

Step 4: You will be taken to the corresponding page. Here, click on the Add New option to install a new plugin.

Step 5: On the new page to install plugins, you will see a search bar to find the plugins you wish to install. Here, type “WordPress SEO by Yoast” and click on the search Plugins button.

Step 6: In the search results, locate the WordPress SEO Plugin and click on the Install Now option. As you can see, it has an average rating of five stars.

Step 7: Wait until the installation of the plugin is completed successfully. Next, you will be given the option to activate the plugin or to return to the plugin installer. Choose the Activate Plugin option.

Step 8: Now you can see the SEO plugin option in the menu on the left hand side of the screen. View the example below.

Step 9: When you try to create a new post or web page, you can view the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin below the post or page. When creating a new page or post, you can enter the related description, title, or focus keyword here.

When the title and description are entered, the plugin gives a preview of what your post will look like.

Applications:

Using WordPress SEO by Yoast, you can complete the following features for your website:

1. Create unique title and meta descriptions for individual posts or web pages
2. Provide focus keywords per post to help find the exact page associated with that keyword. Watch this video to learn more about keyword targeting.
3. Add title tags
4. Add descriptions
5. Add sitemaps
6. Add RSS feeds
7. Edit the robot.txt and .htaccess files
8. Integrate your social media accounts

UpCity members, follow the pathway to complete this task in your UpCity account: Optimize Your Presence > Expand Your Presence II > Website 201: Website Optimization.

Search Optimization

1. Want to know what’s considered gray-hat SEO these days? With the quick evolution of search algorithms and Google penalties, it’s hard to keep up. Webdesigner Depot gets down to the nitty-gritty of gray-hat techniques.
2. We go on and on about how content marketing and SEO are tied tightly together. And how SEO and pretty much everything else in life (okay, slight exaggeration) are tied tightly together. But we’ve also hinted that “SEO copywriting” might be a thing of the past, because you can’t really write just for search engines anymore. At least not if you want to achieve any level of success. But that depends on how you define SEO copywriting–Web Navigator Gal shares her take on why it’s still important.
3. John Chow offers an informative, Q-&-A format post with commonly asked questions about SEO. If you’re wondering whether it’s still worth your time to submit your site to the major search engines, how you’ll know where your visitors stand or how to figure out where you sit in the SERPs, Chow has the answers.

Social Optimization

4. Is social media good for your business? You know the answer, but you may not know exactly HOW important, or why it’s so critical. This visual masterpiece at Twitter Promotion reveals all that and more.
5. There are dozens of social networks. Some are mainstream, some are niche. Some are worth your time, others not so much. How do you know? Well, every business is different, but we can share which social networks are realizing the fastest growth online, thanks to research from eMarketer.
6. Enterprise Dojo rounds up the top 10 social media strategies and tools to market your products—but we’d say the same apply if you’re selling services as well. Great tips in this one, check it out!

Local Optimization

7. CrazyEgg reveals 7 ways to score big in local search, starting with some compelling statistics that may lure you to the bright, white light that is the local search opportunity.
8. You know that mantra that there used to be surrounding SEO? You know the one—think global, not local? Well, that old rule of thumb couldn’t have blown further out the window. Andy Atkins-Krügerre shares how Latvia, a country with a population less than Houston, teaches us that the global way of thinking is outdated.
9. On the other side of the coin, an emphasis on global search isn’t such a bad thing under some circumstances, specifically—and perhaps ironically—your location. Gabe Donnini shares Chitika Insights findings at Marketing Land.

Email Marketing

10. ExactTarget’s weekly Twitter chat on email campaigns revealed some interesting tidbits about data-driven campaigns this week. Check out the recap for all the details.
11. When it comes to email marketing, Posner Advertising says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Email is still a highly effective way to stay top-of-mind and drive inbound leads.
12. You should be designing your email marketing campaigns around the letter “F.” No, we’re not talking about creating F-rated themes. We’re talking about visual design—specifically, these nifty little tools known as heat maps. Get the scoop at MailerMailer’s In The Box blog.

Mobile Optimization

13. The Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange weighs in with some thoughts on mobile’s impact on the digital experience, and why we should be thinking of mobile not necessarily as a separate component, but an extension of the overall digital world.
14. Google is even conducting research into buying patterns of smartphone users. Recent studies reveal that 82 percent of smartphone users make purchasing decisions after using mobile search. That’s pretty convincing. Get the rest of the details from Anuva.
15. Despite all these scary statistics, mobile marketing doesn’t have to be incredibly complex. In fact, it should be easy. 4THGC.com shares some valuable tips for simplifying your mobile marketing efforts.

Content Marketing

16. Guest blogging isn’t actually content marketing, according to The Wall. Check out the full post for their stance on guest blogging, whether you’re doing it right or still stuck in old practices that worked way back in the early 2000’s, and how to do it the right way.
17. Like all things marketing, content marketing is rife with its own set of unique challenges. Geesh, can’t anything just be complexity-free these days? Not to worry, though—Red Rocket Media identifies five of the most common and most important content marketing challenges, as well as viable solutions for each. Whew. Kickin’ all those problems to the curb, one challenge at a time.
18. We’ve talked about using editorial calendars before. But they’re not just handy tools to make your life easier—they can actually supercharge your content marketing efforts. Kerry Finch shares how.
19. Videos are a great way to attract a broader audience through your content marketing efforts. Some people just don’t like to read, they like to be visually entertained. But if you’re wondering what types of videos might resonate with your audience, Inkling Media has five ideas for you.

Conversion Optimization

20. You want to boost your conversion rates, but all that talk about funnels, filters and heat maps has you a little confused. Heather Physioc saves the day with a useful tutorial on multi-channel funnels and conversions that will have you speaking in pro-CRO form in no time.
21. As if funnels and conversions aren’t confusing enough, you then have to deal with a slew of analytics options in the Google Analytics dashboard. Don’t just stick to seeing how many visitors you’re getting, making tweaks until you see those numbers go up. You won’t get the results you could be getting by capitalizing on the full functionality of the Analytics platform. Josh Braaten reveals 16 Google Analytics Advanced Segments you can use to your advantage.
22. Remarketing can be a valuable tactic to increase conversion rates if you use it right. PS Website Design reveals how remarketing works and how to use it for maximum results.

Reputation Management

23. Did you know there’s a website called PissedConsumer.com? If so, have you responded to complaints lodged against your business there? ReputationManagementBusiness.net reveals the pros and cons to responding to these types of complaints.
24. Social media, search and brand reputation are all co-dependent. Search Engine Reputation Management analyzes the relationship and how social media has changed the world of public relations.
25. Customer feedback has always mattered, but never so much as it does today due in large part to the rapid growth of the mobile industry. Marketing Pilgrim features a detailed infographic outlining the importance of customer satisfaction in the mobile world.

BONUS(es):

Matt Cutts reveals what’s to come in SEO in the next few months in a video at his personal site. Since pretty much anything that comes out of Matt Cutts’ mouth is pure gold, we were pretty certain you’d be all over this one. Yeah, so we’re totally going to continue to go on and on about using SEO and social media as a cohesive strategy. And we’re not going to stop emphasizing that until Google releases another major black-and-white animal-themed update that throws a wrench into everything we know about optimizing for search. That said, find out what Assist Social Media has to say about leveraging social influence in your SEO strategy. See, we’re not the only ones obsessed with integrated marketing campaigns.

Impossible-to-Click Calls-to-Action

Consider this: You’re in your car, in a parking lot, frantically searching for some much-needed info on your mobile device. You finally find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and you’re super happy about it. There’s just one little button that you have to click to actually capture the gold, so you click it. Oops, wrong button. Go back. Rinse and repeat.

Has that ever happened to you? Those tiny CTA buttons just aren’t easy to click on, especially for users with fat fingers. (No, we’re not saying your fingers are fat. Just that your fingers have probably at some point been fatter than required to click one of said tiny buttons.) And after a few frustrating attempts at this endeavor, your visitors are going to give it up and go elsewhere. We know we would. Make your CTA buttons big, strong and clickable.

Super-Tiny Text or the Dreaded “Need to Scroll”

This is less of an issue now that publishers are starting to realize that non-mobile optimized sites are basically alienating a huge portion of their audiences, but it’s still a problem nonetheless—even for some optimized sites. Here’s the deal: When you visit a mobile site, you want the text to be readable. Sure, you can increase the size of the text in most mobile browsers, but then what happens? Everything gets bigger and you now have to scroll back and forth to read the copy. UGH. No thanks. Make sure your text is readable without the dreaded scroll requirement.

Missing an App-Building Marketing Opportunity

Here’s another dirty little secret about mobile users: They don’t actually like to use their browsers. It’s true. Mobile users prefer apps, which are easily accessible via home screen widgets, to opening up a mobile browser and dealing with the hassle of filtering through all the non-optimized websites out there trying to find what they’re looking for.

Of course, not all businesses are well-suited for a mobile application. But you should evaluate the potential here, because if your competitors are building useful apps while you’re still forcing them to do the unheard of and actually use their mobile browsers, your visitors will flock to your competition.

Trying to Mimic Your Desktop Version

It’s easy to be fooled into thinking you need a mobile website that looks and functions exactly like the desktop version of your site. But here’s a tip: Stop thinking that. Seriously, like right now. But what about branding, you say? Tie your brand images into your mobile-optimized site, but make it much more usable on the smaller mobile screens. There’s just no way, unless you have a really, really simple design to start with, that you can realistically cram all that onto a tiny mobile screen and keep a sanity-maintaining level of functionality.

Buying into the Menu-Bar Madness

Because you’re probably used to optimizing websites for search engines, we’re gonna cut you a little slack on this one. When it comes to SEO, menu bars can be pretty darn valuable for incorporating relevant anchor text to appropriate areas of your site—not to mention drastically improving usability. But again, mobile’s a whole different ballgame.

Menu bars are one of the most common mistakes made when designing for mobile. If you’re getting stuck on cramming all those menu options on a mobile-sized screen, get over it. There’s a new trend emerging, anyway, that you’re going to want to jump on: Using a three-bar icon to convey the existence of an expandable menu. Genius. Not only do you maintain functionality, but you look like you’re in the know, too. Get Elastic has a whole post on new menu options for mobile websites, along with a bunch of cool examples. Do check it out.

Are you guilty of these mobile optimization no-nos? What factors have you found that send your mobile audience packing, and what keeps them around?

To access our database of questions or ask your own question, become an UpCity member today! Sign up for our free UpCity Daily Tips newsletter to learn other strategies for improving your online presence.

Question 1: I’ve completed a bunch of the tasks I was supposed to do. I’ve submitted my site all over the place. Yet, my keyword rankings don’t change. Separately, my search traffic has dropped, but I”m not sure that’s related. Help!

Our Response: Clients often ask us, ”Why aren’t I seeing results now?” One important item to mention about SEO is that it takes time, and we know how frustrating this can be. Although results vary, it can take several months to start to see improvement in your rankings and search traffic. In addition, various factors affect the progress of your website’s SEO, such as competition, content, industry, keywords, location, on-site optimization, quality of backlinks, and much more. SEO is a time-consuming process, but we promise the results are worth it. SEO is known to be a slower trek, but it will provide durable, everlasting, and valuable results.

We’d also like to discuss your keywords for a minute. Keyword targeting is an essential stepping stone in marketing campaign. You may want to consider choosing a few alternate keywords to test out. Your website is ranking very well for a couple keyword phrases currently tracking in your UpCity account. In particular, the primary keyword improved month over month, which is wonderful to see! However, some keywords in your list may prove quite difficult to achieve high rankings for such as “human resources.”

Keyword phrases that are much more competitive in nature are going to be difficult to earn higher rankings in a shorter amount of time. You’ve yet to see much improvement for them, so perhaps adding another keyword modifier to the term or changing it to a similar long-tail keyword may work better for you. After you’ve selected the keywords, it’s important to make sure they are inserted into your site and to follow the other on-site optimization tips we include in the curriculum. Click to find 25 top web tools for SEO keyword research.

Your website is filled with wonderful targeted content, and we can see you’ve been adding to your  marketing performance on a regular basis. With this consistent SEO work in place, you should start to see some improvement in the search and traffic results. Hope this helps!

Question 2:  I am a small local business and am wondering what specific link building task would be most effective for me.  I write at least one blog article a week, link one keyword to an inside page, link one keyword to a .org, and one keyword to our sister site.

Our Response: It sounds like you follow an active web strategy for your business with the blogging and linking! We recommend continuing to build engaging and quality content as a first priority on top of everything else you’re doing. Writing and publishing unique content will boost your overall targeted traffic and engagement as well as gain authority and trust for your business. Google will notice these components over time. Be sure to also plan a distribution and outreach strategy in addition to writing. To expand your reach and traffic, make it easy for users to share the content via your blog, email, social media, and website. It’s also important to always include those top keywords in your content.

Check out this list of top 25 experts in the field of web content to learn more tips on how to create quality content. In addition, view this list of content marketing and idea generating resources for your website.

Question 3: I am optimizing for local search. What if my business address is nowhere near the area that I serve? I have a cabinet-making company that specializes in custom closet interiors. I want the local search results to reflect my service area, as opposed to my actual shop location many miles away. Is this doable?

Our Response: UpCity members can read the answer to this inquiry, as well as many others, in the UpCity Ask the Expert Help Center. Members are encouraged to ask their own online marketing questions for their business, and our inbound marketing experts are on call to respond to all those questions.

Tap into our community of experts today! If you’re curious about online marketing or SEO, consider signing up for a free trial of UpCity. If you’re already an UpCity member, you can access the Ask the Expert area here and the general Help Center here.

How do you know the keywords you’ve chosen will be profitable? How do you know how much competition there is, or if it’s possible to outrank the existing competition? Should you go short-tail or long-tail? The answers to all these questions lies in keyword research, and we’ve rounded up 25 of the best tools to help you pinpoint the keywords and phrases that will form a solid foundation for your SEO efforts.

1. Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool – Let’s start with the most obvious (and totally free!) tool for generating keyword ideas and gauging the potential for your keywords, and that’s Google’s free AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool. You do need a Google account to use it, but we’re guessing that’s not going to be a problem. Simply enter some words or phrases in the search box and the AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool will provide data on each as well as a slew of related recommendations.
2. Google Trends – A little less obvious, but still offered by the massive web presence we all know as Google, Google Trends is actually a handy tool for keyword research. Once you’ve narrowed down some ideas, use Google Trends to figure out just how popular your key phrases have been around the web throughout a pretty impressive historical timeline.
3. Google Correlate – Google Correlate is yet another Google tool and another step in the complex keyword research process if you choose to use it. After you’ve identified some promising Trends, figure out how those trends correlate to real-world events using Google Correlate. Are certain search terms more popular in winter? What other phrases have trend patterns that mimic yours over time? It’s not necessary to use this tool, but a pretty cool available option for doing things like planning seasonal campaigns.
4. Wordtracker – One of the most widely known keyword research tools, Wordtracker is subscription-based, starting at $69 per month. Wordtracker also offers an ancillary tool, Keyword Questions, that helps you identify the questions people are asking around the web that relate to your target keywords—providing opportunities for meaningful conversations.
5. Compete – Compete isn’t free, but you’ll get a slew of handy tools and resources at your fingertips, such as benchmarking, keyword research, web rankings (not based just on Google rankings, but any Compete metric) and more. It starts at $199 per month, so this tool is better suited for serious analyzers who spend a great deal of their time poring over keyword stats and other metrics.
6. Keyword Discovery Tool – Keyword Discovery compiles data from all the major search engines, so you’re not limited to seeing what’s been happening on Google (or better yet, you’re not limited to focusing your SEO efforts solely towards Google). A subscription here is comparable to Compete, at $199.95 per month.
7. Bing Ads Intelligence Tool – Remember how we just mentioned not focusing all your SEO efforts on Google? We were serious about that—yes, Google is the giant, and it’s not likely to fall from its throne anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean you can’t focus some of your efforts on other search engines and bring valuable traffic from there as well. So try out the Bing Ads Intelligence tool, which is downloadable and operates in a familiar Excel interface.
8. SEO Book – SEO Book’s Keyword Suggestion Tool is based off of Wordtracker data, also offers a Keyword Typo Generator, a tool that suggests common misspellings and typos searched for online. If you use this tool well, you can generate traffic based on the common mistakes of searchers.
9. HitTail – HitTail is a nifty tool that identifies the most profitable keywords to target based on your existing traffic, and where you’ll likely rank on popular search engines if you do so successfully. It’s not free, but plans are reasonable—starting at just $9.95 per month depending on your search volume.
10. HubSpot Keyword Grader SEO Tool – HubSpot’s marketing software provides a variety of different tools for your inbound efforts, including its Keyword Grader SEO Tool. The Keyword Grader tool lets you know if a selected keyword is too difficult to rank for, and therefore not worth your effort, offers suggested alternatives, lets you track your competitors and monitor their rankings over time.
11. Wordze – Wordze offers more than 15 built-in tools to take your SEO campaign to the next level, including a WordRank tool which tells you exactly which keywords to target and a quick list generator that reveals 1,000s of potential keyword possibilities. Try it free for 30 days, then pay as little as $1.25 per day.
12. Niche Watch – Niche Watch doesn’t actually generate potential keywords for you, but it does help you identify who your main competitors are once you’ve built a short list of target keywords. And if you want to outrank your competition, you have to know who the top-rankers are so you can study what they’re doing.
13. Wordstream – WordStream’s internet marketing software goes beyond making keyword suggestions, helping you optimize your web pages and structure your content in a logical hierarchy. You can also find negative keywords that you want to avoid in your campaigns, and group keywords into helpful, more organized clusters. Plans start at $225 per month.
14. serpIQ – With plans starting at $49 per month, serpIQ lets you analyze your competition and discover new keyword opportunities without the hassle of using various tools and toolbars and compiling your data into an Excel spreadsheet by hand.
15. KeywordEye – Get all the essential data in a visualization with KeywordEye, which helps you understand how other websites are linking to you, monitor your anchor text, and simplify your keyword research in one. A free plan searches 10 Google country keyword databases and provides up to 100 keyword suggestions per report. Pro plans are also available.
16. Keyword Spy – Keyword Spy offers real-time competitive analysis of keyword usage and AdWords spending, an ROI analysis for your target keywords and a keyword builder tool for generating hundreds of suggestions. Pricing starts at $89.95 per month for either research or tracking, or you can get both for $139.95 per month.
17. SEM Rush – SEM Rush is a comprehensive platform for both organic and advertising keyword research, a long-tail keyword generator, and chart functions for comparing various SEO metrics. Price plans start at $69.95 per month.
18. Good Keywords – Good Keywords is a free tool to help you organize your data (export .csv data from the Google Keyword Tool), create long-tail keywords using a variety of filter options, generate key phrases from misspellings and organize your keyword lists using Keyword Manager. Good Keywords is a free download.
19. KGen – A Firefox Extension, KGen helps you identify strong keywords across web properties that you visit. That means you can use it for your own sites or for competitive analysis.
20. Wordpot – A simple interface, simply enter a keyword in the search bar and instantly generate a list of possible keyword opportunities, including synonyms, related words and associated words. It’s free to use!
21. SpyFu – Download your competitors’ keywords using SpyFu for just $79 per month. Data includes every keyword your competitors have ever purchased on AdWords, every organic rank and every ad variation for the last six years.
22. Market Samurai – Market Samurai not only helps you choose the right keywords and analyze your competitors, but provides tools for choosing the most profitable domain name available and find and publish content right to your blog. A single payment of $149 gets you access to everything.
23. Soovle – Soolve helps you find hot topics across all the major search engines. Enter a search phrase and get instant targeted suggestions for various search engines—you can even customize which engines you see results from.
24. Raven Tools – Raven SEO Tools is a comprehensive set of tools that combines both Wordtracker and Google AdWords data to provide you with a complete set of suggested key phrases. Instantly track your keywords in Google, Yahoo and Bing and get traffic metrics for any keyword, all from within a single dashboard.
25. Majestic SEO Keyword Checker – Majestic SEO’s Keyword Checker is a free tool allowing you to enter up to five keywords at a time for various metrics including how frequently each is used in anchor text, in a URL, titles and anchor and title text combined.

What keyword analysis tools do you rely on? Do you prefer free tools or are you willing to fork over some hard-earned cash for advanced keyword analytics? Share your favorite tools with us in the comments!

Each week, we’re featuring an in-depth look at one of the recommended tasks built into the UpCity software for our clients. These strategies individually contribute to your online presence and increase your chances of bringing free traffic to your site. Subscribe to the UpCity Daily Tips Newsletter for daily recommendations on how to bring customers to your site.

Background

We all know about the magic of Google. Yet, millions of people use Bing to search for businesses on a regular basis, and it’s gaining more popularity as a strong search engine. In fact, the recent “BingItOn” marketing campaign demonstrates that many people prefer Bing search results versus Google in blind tests.

Bing is gaining ground when it comes to local as well. Bing Places for Business is a free online local listings portal. Websites can add, claim, and list their contact information on Bing’s free directory as a strong way to increase their local and national exposure. At the same time, users can search for a business in their nearby location using Bing’s search interface.

In late April, Bing Business Portal re-launched as Bing Places for Business. Bing Places for Business is a seamless, all-in-one dashboard to manage your business online. With the ability to gain authority and exposure through this search directory, we’d recommend creating a Bing citation now rather than later. Bing remains a compelling and leading way to add credibility and lift your business’s search engine ranking.

The displayed business information is featured in Bing Places searches and other Bing search engines. A business listing includes detailed content for users to browse through, such as communication preferences, contact information, hours, parking information, photos, social media information, videos, and much more.

One key difference between Bing Business Portal (formerly) and Bing Places is that it no longer offers the ability to create coupons, QR codes, mobile websites, and print collateral. With the decision to remove the mobile site experience, we’re interested to see how Bing will target mobile into its future search visibility plans. Learn more great tips about how to optimize for Bing.

Processes to Claim or Modify a Bing Places Listing

Adding or modifying your local Bing listing on the user-friendly dashboard takes only a few minutes, and we’re going to review it step by step.We’d encourage all businesses to establish a presence on Bing. Click here to begin claiming your listing.

If you currently have an existing Bing Listing:

1. Enter your account and click “Manage your Listings.”
2. Click “Edit” to begin updating your business details.
3. Although your information most likely migrated, you will most likely need to re-verify the business details to save an update. 
   
4. Because you found your business already listed in Bing, it’s important to scan the data for any inaccuracies or outdated text. If you notice an incorrect item (specifically, business name, address, email, phone, and domain), we’d recommend taking the time needed to update it. It’s essential to make sure ALL your local information is consistent.
5. Add more details if they weren’t displayed previously, such as videos, hours of operation, contact information, photos, categories, etc.
6. Skip to #5 below for more in-depth tips.

If you need to add a new business:

1. Go to BingPlaces.com.
2. Click “Add Your Business.”
3. Search to find your business listing on Bing.com using either the phone number or business name and location.
4. If you cannot locate your business after heavy searching, create a brand new listing by clicking “Add New Business.” Or, If you find your business in the search results, you can update an existing Bing Listing by clicking “Select and Edit.”
5. Fill in the information under each section. The more details you add about the company, the better! Below are the available data points:
   • Basic Business Details (includes address, email, website, and business categories). Note: You are able to insert up to ten business categories, so select as many as you can that target your business.  You cannot manually add categories.
   • Additional Business Category (includes operation hours, description, company tagline, year established, and brands carried). Note: When carefully writing a company description, include targeted keyword(s), but do not over-use them.
   • Online Presence (includes links to Facebook, Twitter, and additional associated websites)
   • Images and Videos (includes company logo, up to ten business photographs, and videos)
   • Other Contact Information (includes mobile phone, toll-free number, fax number, and additional contact email addresses)
   • General Information (includes parking options, payment options, spoken languages, and professional affiliates)
6. Be sure to carefully review your work before hitting “Submit.” This rule applies to Bing and all local search platforms that list your business: Make sure the business information is correct and standardized across all your local directory listings. Ensure all data is consistent.
7. Select “Verify” when you’re done, which will allow you to confirm the business listing by voice or by mail. The primary phone number will be contacted, or the registered postal address will be sent a postcard within five business days.

If you need to upload multiple businesses:

The upload tool makes it easy and simple to add many listing at one time. Users can import 10 to more than a thousand business listings all at once using a spreadsheet in Bing’s web interface.

Click for more information on this feature. We found the whole process quick to understand.

If you need to delete a business listing:

1. Log into your account and click “Manage your Listings.”
2. Find the listing you wish to delete and hit the “Delete” button.
3. You will be asked to re-verify whether or not you want to delete the listing and there’s an option to add a reason why. Hit “Delete Business.”
4. That’s it!

UpCity members, follow the pathway to complete this task in your UpCity account: Optimize Your Presence > Expand Your Presence > Local 102: Top Local Directories.

Video Tutorial Series: Site Dashboard Overview

Check out our latest video tutorial that provides a quick overview of our Site Dashboard.

The Dashboard is designed as the homepage of the UpCity application. Members will see this page first after logging into their UpCity accounts. In the video below, we share some top features of the Dashboard and provide easy tips on how you can leverage it.

Stay tuned for upcoming video tutorials on how to use specific aspects of the UpCity software as well as how to create free traffic for your business.

If you’re not able to view the video, check out YouTube.

Do you have a particular suggestion for an upcoming video? We would love to know what you’d like to view and encourage you to provide video ideas at the bottom of this post!

• Click here to view more UpCity videos.
• View our Keyword Targeting Video.
• View our New Member Welcome Video.
• Check out how to use video SEO to increase traffic to your website.
• Follow how to create a YouTube channel for your business.
• Learn about the impact of video content.

We know it can get really complicated just understanding all the different marketing avenues available to you, figuring out what makes the most sense for you and just merely keeping up with the trends. Integrating your tactics as a cohesive strategy seems like taking it to a whole different level—but actually, if you make your campaigns cohesive from the get-go you’ll have a much easier time managing your inbound marketing campaign.

Would you rather manage a single, yet more complex, marketing strategy, or half a dozen totally separate marketing plans? Yeah, that’s what we thought. Us, too. That’s just one more reason we put together the Top 25 Inbound Marketing Articles for you each week—so it’s easy for you to keep up with what’s going on across the various facets of the inbound marketing industry, all in one place. This week, you’ll learn about the new types of Twitter Cards, cool tools for social media management, copywriting for email marketing, and more. Oh, and a few cool bonuses, too.

Search Optimization

1. Cognito just released a cool infographic outlining the top 10 SEO tips for 2013. You can find it at Forbes.
2. Link building. Good or bad? Good links are important for SEO, but how do you go about getting them? Jess DelBalzo, SEO Manager at ImageWorks Creative, shares five things you need to know about links at Business2Community.
3. Thinking about hiring an SEO agency? Discover Your Customers reveals four must-ask questions before you make a decision.

Social Optimization

4. Synchronizing SEO and social media is a wise move in today’s inbound marketing world. Brick Marketing shares four ways to tie it together.
5. Tools, roundups and social media in one. Sounds like a recipe for a happy Friday! Rebecca Debono, Social Media Strategist at Digitaria, reveals her five favorite social media tools at iMedia Connection.
6. It’s been a little while since we’ve talked about the power of Pinterest. Inkling Media hasn’t forgotten about the image-driven social craze, though: They’re offering up five ways small businesses can make use of Pinterest’s popular platform.
7. Speaking of Pinterest, have you converted your account to a Pinterest business account yet? Check out these three tips from Sociable360 on making the most of your business presence on Pinterest.

Local Optimization

8. Google+ has risen to the top of something, emerging as the social leader in local search marketing. Get the scoop from Brafton.
9. There’s a mobile shift occurring in local search—and you can take advantage. Anna Bager, VP and General Manager of IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence shares, how you can capitalize on the shift at ClickZ.
10. Glenn Gabe, Digital Marketing Consultant at G-Squared Interactive, reveals Facebook Graph Search’s Local Ranking Factors at Search Engine Watch.

Email Marketing

11. We’re all about email marketing this week. If you missed it, check out our Top 25 Free or Low-Cost Email Marketing Web Applications, and if you’re looking for a sweet email marketing template you can customize, we’ve got more than 800 of them for ya! Beyond all that, copy is critical—and Amanda Clark, President and Editor-in-Chief of GrammarChic, Inc., helps you out in that aspect with 10 killer tips for effective email copywriting at Business2Community.
12. Want a better email marketing campaign? We’re in! Liza Shaw features an infographic outlining five crucial considerations to up your email game, courtesy of EricWelke.com.
13. Is email marketing still beneficial for your business? Well, yeah! In all honesty, it can be if done right—but it can also be a colossal waste of your time if you don’t take the time to strategize, integrate with your other tactics and appeal to your audience. Integrated LeadGen Results shares two compelling reasons you should still be using email as a part of your marketing mix.

Mobile Optimization

14. Facebook’s mobile location pages have a new look. All Facebook shares some insights on Facebook’s mobile location pages redesign and how you can take advantage–simplified interactions between mobile users and businesses is just one of the advantages. Hmmm, will this be enough to push Facebook ahead of Google+ in the social media for local search race?
15. So many devices, so many user preferences, so many mobile browsers…ugh. Mobile optimization seems all too much to take in, but Peter Dille has six tips to get you on the right track—and help you chill. Check it out at Adotas.
16. What the heck is a Twitter Card, and how can it help you with mobile marketing? Yet another socially integrated feature for mobile marketers, and Anne Ward of Mobile FOMO has the scoop.

Content Marketing

17. What’s the point of all that content marketing? To drive leads and increase sales, of course. Endless Leadz has six simple solutions for making it happen.
18. Think you know everything there is to know about content marketing? Find out if you’re buying into these 12 common misconceptions at JeffBullas.com.
19. It’s Friday. Let’s start the weekend off on a positive note. We have just the thing: Some inspiring content marketing stories from CopyContentMarketing.com. We’re fairly certain this post will inspire at least a few weekend daydreaming—er, brainstorming—sessions.

Conversion Optimization

20. Crowdsourced conversion optimization—should you consider it? Find out at The Conversion Scientist.
21. Schneider B offers 8 effective ways to increase your blog’s conversion rates, authored by none other than Daniel Sharkov.
22. Frustrated with your conversion rates, but don’t have a lot of extra budget to throw at CRO right now? Check out these five free tools to help you boost your conversion rates, courtesy of Diamond Website Conversion.

Reputation Management

23. Ooops! Don’t be the next person to be kicking yourself for a big reputation management mishap—Supermedia shares six online reputation management mistakes to avoid.
24. Wow. Jacquelyn Lynn shares a compelling personal story about an entity which used a not-so-hot reputation management strategy to respond to a blog about a reputation management strategy used for a previous issue. It sounds confusing, and rightfully so, but it’s a definite must-read to understand just how complex the world of online reputation management can get.
25. If you’re suddenly caught in a reputation crisis, what should you do? Take action or stay silent? Seven Boats takes a look at the “go mute” strategy and possible alternatives.

BONUS(es):

• Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local, reveals his seven favorite social media tools to help you stand out online. Get the list at LinkedIn.
• Is your social analytics tool working for you? Social Media Today hosts a webinar featuring four expert speakers with details on really getting the most from social media—and your analytics solution. Worth a listen, or download the slides to browse at your convenience.
• Is conversion optimization more important than click-through? AdRants says so—and has a free report detailing why relying on clicks to drive conversions for display advertising is a dead end.

Of course, many of those rocking email marketing applications we told you about the other day offer free templates for their customers to use. But you might choose to look around if you don’t quite find what you’re looking for. Here are a 10 impressive resources offering up some fancy email designs (more than 800 templates combined!) for your use—in any email application.

1. Let’s start out with the basics. If you really want to dig into creating your own design, but don’t want to take the time to formulate the code for a basic layout, check out Carbon Graffiti. They offer four basic layouts, including one-column, two-column, postcard and promotional formats, in addition to four advanced designs and two custom layouts.
2. Want a slew of options? Marketing Ship boasts more than 350 professionally designed, free email templates in more than 20 different industries and special occasions.
3. You know that problem email marketers run into all the time? The really annoying issue with your code rendering differently in all those various email clients? Promothon has it covered with 30+ templates that have been tried and tested in most major email clients. (If you do a lot of code-tweaking, it’s definitely a good idea to re-test before you send.)
4. Like to get your hands dirty with code? No problem for Campaign Monitor. Download one of their 100+ free email marketing templates—created by some of the world’s finest designers—and tweak them to your liking.
5. FreeEmailTemplates.com has more than 40 email marketing templates, free to download and customize as you wish.
6. Active Campaign is another cool email marketing platform, but it’s also a great resource for free email marketing templates. To access Active Campaign’s 34+ free templates, you’ll need to sign up for a free account.
7. Templates Box is a virtual goldmine of free email templates—nearly 100 of them. Looking for a template geared towards photography, food and drink, business, art and design? Templates Box has options for you.
8. Delivery Success has a few free email templates you can download and customize, provided you don’t remove the Delivery Success branding at the bottom. Fair enough, right? Oh, and you also can’t use it to promote adult content. We’re pretty confident that won’t be a problem!
9. OmniStar Web Based Software has 30 email marketing templates, each downloadable and customizable theme with color variations, layout options, custom graphics and more. Fill out the form (your first name and email is all they ask!) for access.
10. Benchmark Email has 20 templates—download them individually or as a group—for total customization in whatever HTML editor you prefer.

Even if you don’t have the resources to hire a freelance or in-house designer to create a totally custom email marketing template, you can look just as good to your subscribers by using a pre-built template and adding some personal branding and other customizations. What’s your favorite go-to resource when you’re looking for an amazing new visual foundation for your email campaigns?

To access our database of questions or to ask your own question, become an UpCity member today! Sign up for our free UpCity Daily Tips newsletter to learn other strategies for improving your online presence.

Question 1: How do I confirm that the total page size of my homepage is under 500K?

Our Response: Several free online tools are available to check the size of your homepage. In particular, we recommend the Pingdom Website Speed Test. Pingdom Tools offers a free and hanfy service that will perform a size or speed test for your website.

To use the Pingdom Tools software, follow these two simple directions. Enter the URL of your home page, and then click the “Test Now” button. There is a lot of website information to look through on the four outcome tabs. To answer your specific question, the “waterfall” tab monitors the ideal homepage size that you are looking for.

Another option to directly check a page size is to right click on the web page.  Click “Page Info” or similar wording to view the page size. Please note this strategy depends on the browser you are using and cannot be completed with every type. In Firefox, for example, users can right click on the web page (assuming it’s a single page and not a <frameset>) and select “View Page Info.” View the example screenshot below. In addition, users can check page size in their Google Webmaster Tools or download a free browser extension.

Question 2: Does it matter if I put the same contents in the header and footer of the homepage of my website?

Our Response:  It’s not a problem if you would like to insert similar text in the header and footer of your homepage. This strategy is common practice and found throughout many websites. Adding the same content in the header and footer will not cause a direct negative impact of your search engine crawling and ranking.

As a quick tip: There are CMS plugins that you may want to look into adding to your website, which will help to create powerful code for the header and footer on each page of your site. In addition to these two specific sections, it’s important that you include optimized keywords as well as quality and inquie content on your entire website. However, do not display duplicate content on your webpages. Identical content on your site violates Google’s content guidelines and will likely penalize your rankings.

Question 3: When submitting my business to directory websites,  should I enter our initials with periods if the initials are part of a company name?  Example: “RN” versus “R.N.” Overall, which one is best to use?

Our Response: UpCity members can read the answer to this inquiry, as well as many others, in the UpCity Ask the Expert Help Center. Members are encouraged to ask their own online marketing questions for their business, and our inbound marketing experts are on call to respond to all those questions.

Tap into our community of experts today! If you’re curious about online marketing or SEO, consider signing up for a free trial of UpCity. If you’re already an UpCity member, you can access the Ask the Expert area here and the general Help Center here.