A few months ago, I signed up a new client, Look Beyond Art Gallery.  They sell unique and affordable art out of their Miami Beach shop and online.  Their vast collection includes whimsical sculptures, pop-art paintings, furniture such as tables and chairs, and ceramic pieces.

Thierry Dufloo, founder of the gallery, is well-known throughout Europe for his framing shops.  You can read more about him here on his art blog.  He opened Look Beyond last year and already has plans to start selling framing services once again, here in Miami.  This is a logical next step as you can purchase and have your art framed at the same place.

What really sets Look Beyond apart is their approach: art everyone can enjoy at reasonable prices.  You’ll find pieces starting under $20 such as small prints as well as cool sculptures for less than $100.  There are also a variety of iconic celebrity paintings for less than $30.

If you haven’t already, stop by the gallery or visit them online:

Look Beyond Art Gallery
1427 Washington Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
786-290-4801

The gallery is open 7 days and has extensive hours so you’ll never miss an opportunity to see their collection.

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I would like to offer a warm welcome to my newest client, Experian Public Adjusters.  They are public insurance claims adjusters in Miami who specialize in fire, water, flood, hurricane and other property damage to your home or business.

Founded by Alex Alonso, Experian works hard to help you receive the maximum claim from your insurance company.  By nature, insurance companies payout the least amount of money if say your roof has a leak and causes damage to your home.  But Alex and his team work diligently to negotiate a better claim settlement to help you avoid the headaches that arise from these matters.

We at Sky SEO are also working hard to help Experian gain more visibility online by improving their social media presence, acquiring quality backlinks, and optimizing their site, which we redesigned at no additional charge.

For more information about Experian, visit their website to setup a free claim evaluation.  They never charge a fee if there is not a recover or claim settlement from your insurance company.  So before you do a random search online and choose the first insurance claims adjusters you see, check out Experian.

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Now more than ever your business’ local presence is important. Yes, you need organic rankings to be found online ― otherwise SEO wouldn’t really matter ― but ranking in Google + Local and showing up in business directories also drives leads.

Here are three tips to improve your local optimization:

1) Register your business with local business directories such as Yelp, Foursquare, CitySearch, and Yahoo Local. If you aren’t sure where you’re registered, sites such as Yext.com will do a free scan and show you where your completed listings exist.

2) Optimize your local business listings. Make sure to include your website and links to social sites such as Twitter and Facebook where possible. Make sure to use the same phone number and address format ― Suite 100 or #100 ― for consistency.

3) On directory sites that allow reviews, ask customers that have used your service or product to leave a positive feedback. Make sure they don’t leave reviews from your business PC or at your location as your IP address is tracked and the review may be flagged.  Also, users which have done previous reviews may have a better chance of success than first-time users depending on the business.

So remember: setup directory listings along with any other link building you do as part of your local SEO strategy.

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I was recently contacted by a prospective client who had his AdWords account suspended.  He had approached a few different companies who advertise that they can do the following:

1) Determine why the account was suspended

2) Help to reinstate/unsuspend  the account

I’m not claiming to be a PPC guru by any means.  But I do have a lot of experience managing accounts, and I can tell you it’s really not that complicated to call Google and have the account fixed.  Half the time it’s a simple change to the ad.  The other half it’s a small issue with the landing page.  But either way it’s not so difficult to correct your issues with AdWords.

I already made a call to Google for this client, and I can guarantee that shortly the account will be reinstated.  So before you spend thousands of dollars having some experts unsuspend your account, send me an e-mail and we can work it out.

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There have been so many changes recently to SEO as we know it.  From Panda and Penguin updates to Google search algorithm to exact domain search changes, SEO just isn’t what it use to be.

But fear not.  There is still hope.  So what to do?  Focus on strong, unique content.  Build natural links from high quality sites, and avoid over optimizing your site.  It’s sort of a shift back to 90′s style optimization.

Google is hoping to follow through on it’s original goal of 16 years ago: produce, the most relevant search results possible.  That means indexing, crawling and checking sites for the best content.  So ultimately, it’s your job to convince the spiders that your site has that content.

It takes time, but by blogging, creating good content pages, having press releases written, using social media, etc., these goals can be accomplished.

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By Bryan Wisotsky

Do you know your business Facebook login?  Do you regularly check your website?  Do you participate in the expansion of your online presence?  Do you know which promotions are being offered on your site?  If you answered “no” to most of these questions, you might be an Absentee Website Owner.  That’s to say someone who is neglecting your website, a resource which is supposed to help you grow your brand and business.

Competing online is difficult as is growing your internet visibility.  But you won’t get far if you don’t participate in the process.  And it might seem obvious, but countless business owner who are doing internet marketing miss the mark.

Understandably, some business owners don’t have time to manage their internet marketing.  And I’m not suggesting that they forgo attending to more pressing matters to tweet and blog.  But there has to be a middle ground.  And you as a business person have to be engaged.  If that means getting a monthly report from your marketing company, then that’s a good start.  You could even spend 30 minutes each night reviewing your site and social media effort.

The point is you need to be aware of what’s happening to succeed.

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By Bryan Wisotsky

I’ve been a foodie for as long as I can remember.  Even before being a foodie was a thing.  I was the type of kid that was more interested in sushi and Falafel than Happy Meals.  My appetite for food knows no bounds and covers cuisines ranging from Japanese to Middle Eastern.

Fast forward 20 years or so, and it dawned on me that I’ve worked with various clients over the years but never Food Trucks or restaurants.  I have a strong passion for food and SEO so it seems only logical.  And surely food entrepreneurs could benefit from SEO and internet marketing just like my other clients.

So today I am writing to future and prospective clients to say, contact me for a FREE consultation about how we can improve your online visibility for your restaurant, food truck, or Falafel stand.  Moreover, I am willing to offer some FREE work on your site.  That’s right, I will review your site, optimize it and maybe even throw in some links.  All I ask for in return is a referral.

In the meantime, check out my food boards on Pinterest.

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By Bryan Wisotsky

Google recently released a file sharing platform called Google Drive which allows users to store up to 5 GB of data. Similar to Dropbox, Google Drive allows users to add files, share links to those files, and organize lots of images, videos, documents, and more. What’s different is that there’s more storage — more than double Dropbox — but it also integrates with Google Plus and Gmail. Moreover, you can work on a document or spreadsheet, within the Drive system, or create a new one.

This is yet another online file sharing system that makes collaboration with other users easier and reduces the need for large email attachments.

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By Bryan Wisotsky

Amazon.com is rumored to be planning a launch of a proprietary smartphone to compete with Apple’s ever-popular iPhone. Amazon plans to use Foxconn — the Taiwanese mobile phone plant which produces the iPhone — to manufacture its cell phone.

This comes on the heels of the success of the Kindle Fire — Amazon’s tablet which competes with the iPad directly and virtually functions the same way.

This would help Jeff Bezos, CEO, give his company market share in the lucrative cell phone industry.  Amazon is also supposedly acquiring mobile technology patents to assist in this endeavor.

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By Bryan Wisotsky

In an attempt to become more social, Microsoft purchased Yammer — an online, enterprise site — this week for $1.2 Billion. Yammer will be a separate entity from Microsoft, but operate in conjunction with SharePoint, Office 365, Dynamics and Skype.

But what is Yammer exactly? And why was Microsoft willing to pay over a billion dollars for it?  According to its website, “Yammer brings the power of social networking to the enterprise in a private and secure environment. Yammer… is designed for company collaboration, file sharing, knowledge exchange and team efficiency.”

So basically, it’s an expensive version of Dropbox with a status update option?

As time passes, we will have a better idea of how this software works and whether it was worth money.

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