Improve Local SEO, Increase Website Traffic and Earn More Sales by Publishing Videos

11. December 2015 · Comments Off on Improve Local SEO, Increase Website Traffic and Earn More Sales by Publishing Videos · Categories: Mountain Woods Media, SEO, Training Courses · Tags: , ,


Customers, clients and website visitors all love videos. In fact, videos are getting more attention these days than photographs.

Videos keep customers on your website longer, especially when the video is informative and entertaining.

Don’t worry: you don’t need to hire an expensive video crew with fancy cameras; giant lights with all the glitz and glamor. And, you don’t have to buy an extra piece of equipment or software in order to create videos for your website.

Instead, for starters, use your smart phone along with free software to help get you started.

Customers don’t need flashy graphics and scrolling text. What they are looking for is information about how to solve a problem or how your company can help them with your goods and services.

Videos can be short (even one or two minutes), but try to keep them under 5 or 10 minutes if you can. Introduce yourself; explain the problem and offer the solution. Done!

Publish your videos on your company YouTube Channel and on your website (like we did in this blog post). Share your videos via your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).

You can see more of our videos on our YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBrvlgZtguugEfgmuYD-jcw)

Don’t Worry About The ‘Haters’ When It Comes To Business Reviews

02. October 2015 · Comments Off on Don’t Worry About The ‘Haters’ When It Comes To Business Reviews · Categories: Mountain Woods Media · Tags: , , ,

HatersOnline reviews – both positive and negative – can go a long way when it comes to earning new customers and trying to maintain an ongoing positive online reputation.

Unfortunately, some businesses choose not to participate in the online review process because they fear an onslaught of bad business reviews. Let’s go ahead and put this myth aside:

  • Customers can leave reviews for your company whether you claim and confirm your business profile in Yelp, Manta and other review sites. Just because you haven’t claimed your profile, doesn’t mean it won’t be active in review websites. It’s best to participate so you can communicate with your customers and earn higher rankings by completing your profile.
  • Former employees and “haters” might indeed leave bad reviews for your business. However, review websites (such as Yelp) have algorithms in place to recognize and hide negative reviews from profile view. Even so, most intelligent customers can easily spot a fake review (good or bad).
  • Competitors might also leave your business a bad review. Yelp will automatically remove reviews that are proven to have been written by a competitor.

Overall, don’t let a few worrisome reasons keep your business from claiming, confirming and optimizing your business profile in review and mapping websites. The benefits far outweigh the negatives. For instance:

  • For each business profile you claim and optimize, you’re giving your business another opportunity to be seen by a future potential customer. Overall, there are approximately 50 good review websites that allow businesses to set up free profiles.
  • For each business profile you claim and optimize, that’s one more inbound link from a reputable website pointing back to your company’s website.
  • Many review websites, such as Yelp, rank high in Google on local search terms. Therefore, if your business can earn a higher position in Yelp, it will automatically earn a higher spot in search engine rankings.
  • Since more and more people are relying on smartphones and tablets, they are also using review apps, such as Yelp, in order to find restaurants; coffee shops; hotels and other businesses. You’ll want make sure your business is visible and up-to-date so future customers can find you in various review apps.

Learn more about online reputation management; Yelp and earning more local traffic to your website by previewing (free) these courses in Udemy.com:

“Online Reputation Management: Handling Negative Reviews”
https://www.udemy.com/online-reputation-management-negative-business-reviews

“Promote Your Business and Earn More Sales By Mastering Yelp”
https://www.udemy.com/mastering-yelp

“Earn More Sales By Increasing Local Traffic To Your Website”
https://www.udemy.com/earn-more-sales-by-increasing-local-traffic-to-your-website

 

 

Press Release: SEO Workshop on Ten Effective Ways To Improve Google Rankings

16. September 2015 · Comments Off on Press Release: SEO Workshop on Ten Effective Ways To Improve Google Rankings · Categories: Mountain Woods Media, SEO, Training Courses · Tags: , , , , , , ,

SEO WorkshopMountain Woods Media, LLC, an Internet consulting and content development firm, has released a new SEO workshop course on Udemy.

The course “SEO Workshop: Ten Effective Ways To Improve Google Rankings” features a real life review and critique of five different websites in order to find ways to help them earn higher rankings in Google and other search engines.

“Students will find that as we review our selected websites, they will see some common problems that also exist in their own business’ website,” says Mountain Woods Media, LLC Vice President Steve Phillips.

“In this course, we’ll look at websites for a plumber; a restaurant; a law firm; a brick-and-mortar business, and an e-commerce company,” says Phillips. “In all cases, these companies are ranked No. 11 or worse in Google, but they all have at least three areas that need some minor improvements that will help them move up in Google search engine rankings.”

The “SEO Workshop: Ten Effective Ways To Improve Google Rankings” covers:

  • How to apply quick and easy techniques in order to improve your website’s search engine optimization.
  • Updating and improving on-page SEO elements.
  • Revisiting often-overlooked page and picture tags.
  • How to meet and exceed page content requirements.
  • Optimizing your company’s review website profile.
  • Never missing easy chances for higher rankings in Google and other search engines.
  • Earning more traffic to your company’s website.

This two-hour course includes 19 lectures, quizzes and a course worksheet. As in other Mountain Woods Media courses, students will be able to participate in online question-and-answer discussions with course students and Phillips. Mountain Woods Media, LLC will soon announce “office hours” in which students will be able to connect live via Skype for private one-on-one training and instruction at no additional charge.

“SEO Workshop: Ten Effective Ways To Improve Google Rankings” is currently available for $99 and can be purchased at https://www.udemy.com/seo-workshop-study.

Mountain Woods Media, LLC Releases First Udemy Course

10. August 2015 · Comments Off on Mountain Woods Media, LLC Releases First Udemy Course · Categories: Mountain Woods Media, ORM · Tags: , , ,

Mountain Woods Media, LLC releases first ORM Udemy CourseMountain Woods Media, LLC, a content development firm, has released its first training course on Udemy.

The course “Online Reputation Management: Handling Negative Reviews” is designed for large and small businesses; professional and medical services, and other firms who need to manage and improve their online business reviews.

“Unfortunately, some businesses and professionals receive negative reviews in Yelp, Google Places or on other online review websites,” says Mountain Woods Media Vice President Steve Phillips.

“This course is an easy-to-follow guide on how to respond to negative reviews and turn them into positive reviews for your company,” he adds.

This “Online Reputation Management: Handling Negative Reviews” Udemy course covers:

  • Understanding how Online Reputation works for businesses and individuals.
  • How to take proper steps in handling online negative business reviews, including how to respond to them.
  • How to turn a negative review into a positive review.
  • How to claim and optimize online business profiles and map listing websites.
  • How to manage your business’ online reputation.
  • How to create easy content and optimize it for better rankings in Google and other search engines.

Currently, students can preview two (2) course lectures for free, including:

  • Lecture 1: “Everything’s Online As It Happens”
  • Lecture 2: “Understanding Online Reputation Management”

The three-hour course features 22 lectures and several downloadable documents. Students may participate in online question-and-answer discussions with other students and Phillips. Mountain Woods Media, LLC will announce “office hours” soon in which students can connect live via Skype for more one-on-one training and instruction at no additional charge.

“Online Reputation Management: Handling Negative Reviews” is currently available for $49 and is available at https://www.udemy.com/online-reputation-management-negative-business-reviews/

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Mountain Woods Media, LLC is a content development firm specializing in Search Engine Optimization; Online Reputation Management and App Search Optimization. Online Reputation is how a business or a person appears online through search results. The process by which one continuously improves their online reputation is called “online reputation management.” Fresh and positive content helps improve your online reputation in overcoming bad publicity; bad business reviews or making a life mistake.

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Udemy is the world’s online learning marketplace, where over 7 million students are taking courses in everything from programming to yoga to photography and much, much more. Each of Udemy’s 30,000+ courses is taught by an expert instructor, so every course is available on-demand, and students can learn at their own pace, on their own time, and on any device. For more information, visit http://udemy.com

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Bitly is More Than a Link Shortening Tool

10. February 2015 · Comments Off on Bitly is More Than a Link Shortening Tool · Categories: Blogging, Mountain Woods Media · Tags: , ,

bitly is more than a link shortening toolThere are plenty of tools we like to use when it comes to development and marketing our apps, but since Valentine’s Day is approaching we thought we’d highlight a particular service that we really “love.”

bitly.

In a nutshell, bitly (http://bitly.com) is a free link shortening service allowing users to take a long link (for an article, blog, app, etc.) and make it into a shorter one. This is a valuable tool for Twitter users, who are limited to 140 characters per Tweet. You can also use the same short link in other social media avenues such as Facebook, Google + etc., and be consistent in your link building and sharing efforts.

For example, let’s say we wanted to share a link to our game in Twitter, Facebook, etc. Here’s the long link to our game “The Trout Family Swim and Fish Adventure” located in iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/trout-family-swim-fish-adventure/id675169950?mt=8

However, with bitly, we can shorten the link to this:

http://bit.ly/1CqdOJ9

See the huge difference? We shortened the 81-character link to 21 characters.

Now, let’s take it one step further. When you sign up for a free bitly account, you can customize your bitly links. Therefore, our short link to our fishing game:

http://bit.ly/1CqdOJ9

…can be changed to this or to anything we’d like:

http://bit.ly/troutgame

How cool is that?

In addition, bitly saves all your shortened links and tracks clicks to your bitly links.

Tracking your clicks is extremely important in order to gauge what your fans and followers are clicking; what day; time of day, etc. Recently, we discovered our Sunday clicks aren’t that great, so we might change things up a bit on Sunday in order to earn better engagement. Also, bitly highly recommends A/B testing with your links http://bit.ly/1EVoW1H.

There are other bitly alternatives, such as:

* Google http://goo.gl/

* Tiny URL http://tinyurl.com/

* Ow.ly http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url (which is also available within Hootsuite).

Which link shortener do you use?

Mountain Woods Media, LLC Releases New Version of ‘Splatz and Batz’ Game App

25. October 2013 · Comments Off on Mountain Woods Media, LLC Releases New Version of ‘Splatz and Batz’ Game App · Categories: Apple, Game Design, Mountain Woods Media, Spring Games · Tags: ,

New version includes several game upgrades and integrates Nextpeer for head-to-head play and tournament competition opportunities.

Worldwide, October 25, 2013

Mountain Woods Media, LLC has released a new version of its iOS app “Splatz and Batz” with new game features including NextPeer multiplayer compatibility.

The free app, available in Apple’s App Store, is based on the concept of helping insects avoid busy, oncoming highway traffic in order to keep the bug character from becoming a “splat” on a windshield.

splatz-screen-capPlayers have the opportunity to choose from four bug characters – (all free) and can earn points by collecting leaves, dandelions and pieces of candy.

The new version (v1.2) adds:

  • Starting the game with additional character lives.
  • Opportunity to earn extra lives during game play.
  • Earn “Power Ups” during game play, which increase game speed and/or create additional scoring opportunities.
  • Game levels.
  • Social media integration with Facebook and Twitter.
  • Mute sound.

Apple’s Game Center and NextPeer’s Multiplayer are also included for head-to-head and tournament play. Players can turn off ads within the game and/or add a Kids Mode for invincible game play, for a small additional charge.

Mountain Woods Media, LLC is a mobile application (app) development company specializing in creating business, hobby, special-interest and game apps.

Watching the Social Gaming Network

16. July 2013 · Comments Off on Watching the Social Gaming Network · Categories: Mountain Woods Media · Tags:
social gaming network icon

© 2013 Mountain Woods Media, LLC.

It’s all the little things we learn and apply to our apps that help create a better user experience.

Games need to be fun and entertaining, but we’ve also found out users like to compare their skills against other players via Apple’s Game Center.

In case you didn’t know, Game Center is a multi-player social gaming network which allows players to compete head-to-head. Users can invite and challenge friends or play solo within the network and try to earn top rankings. Top scores are displayed within the game’s leaderboards. Players can also check achievements (goals) against other players and friends. In addition, players can complete against each other in real-time, multi-player competitions.

We tripped in “Little’s Sparky’s Forest Fire Game” and in “Splatz and Batz” as Apple declined our use of their Game Center logo in our apps (something about a copyright issue here; although we’ve seen countless other apps with the identical rejected logo). However, “Roly Poly and The Lizard” was Game Center ready and experienced immediate success through head-to-head social play.

During the first day, 377 players downloaded and played “Roly Poly and The Lizard” and we tracked about 225 players were using it within Game Center.

Five players constantly vied against each other in an attempt to keep the top score. As the game’s developer, it was fun to watch the early players fight for a top score in our game!

Game Center is a must-have in all games. Nextpeer, another multi-player social gaming network, seems to want a piece of this pie, but has lately run into an Apple brick wall. Lately, we’re hearing games with Nextpeer are being rejected as Apple believes Nextpeer is gathering information from users. Hopefully, this will be resolved soon, but which multi-player network will developers use? Both?

As we move forward, we’ll be incorporating Game Center in all new games and in all updates. Nextpeer, we hope, will soon follow.

Our first blog post for “On the Mountain”

08. August 2012 · Comments Off on Our first blog post for “On the Mountain” · Categories: Mountain Woods Media · Tags:

First ideas for Mountain Woods started on a “real” mountaintop in the southern Appalachia mountains.  This was a Christmas day view.

On the Mountain

First thoughts for the “On the Mountain” blog and Mountain Woods Media started on a “real” mountain top.

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