As I have done the last few years, I am having a fantasy baseball league for my associates in the search engine marketing field. If you are interested in joining, we have few places left. It has been a lot of fun in the past and everyone gets some free plugs here on the site. Ping me if you are interested.

My first grader is learning about maps and the teacher is asking him to contact family and friends from “outside” of town to send post cards. Each time they get a post from a new place, they will find it on the map and look up some info about the place. There is no limit to how many cards to get.

So I am extending this invitation to my global audience. If you would like to help with this project, ping me and I will send you his school address.  Do not know anyone else in the class who is blogging for post cards. LOL

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Today I listened in on a webinar by BIA/Kelsey on their upcoming Marketplaces 2010 conference happening next month in San Diego. If you have not been to a Kelsey conference I highly recommend them. From what was presented, it looks to be a very informative conference. Just wanted to share a couple of things that were presented today which caught my eye.

I. They spoke about 6 major trends they see in marketplaces. Those trends are:

a. Google leverages vertical extensions
b. Verticals focus on search rankings
c. Competitors create a robust ecosystem ‘working around’ Google
d. Social engagement adds a ‘third way’ for local marketers
e. Impulse purchases and lead generation add new local focus points
f. Mobile adds ultra portability

II. They spoke on areas of innovation to watch. Those areas are:

a. Social locatoin based networks
b. Actionable local utilities
c. Voice and visual search to drive decisions

Local search continues to grow and the more you understand of local search marketing, the better you can take advantage of it. Want to learn more, check out the conference, read my blog and check out those in my blogroll. You will be glad you did.

It still amazes me how some of my clients (and potential clients) run their business..ignoring the Internet or what is going on really is not a smart move.  (Ok I am off my soap box) Below are the articles I think provide a nice overview for these areas.  Happy reading!

A. Social Marketing:
10 Creative Ways Businesses Used Twitter in 2009 by Matt McGee

B. Linking:
11 Effective, Efficient Ways To Use Limited Time To Build Links

How To Take Control Of Your Link Building In 2010

C. Video Marketing
42 Ways to Use Online Video for Business Marketing by Mark Robertson

11 Predictions for the Online Video Industry in 2010

D. Reviews
How To Handle Negative Reviews Of Your Business by David Ingram

E. Local Search
Local SEO Predictions 2010 by Andrew Shotland

Blocking And Tackling: 10 Fundamentals Of Local SEO by David Mihm

The “Other 20%” Of Local SEO: Advanced Ranking Factors

Predictions For The Changing Local Search Landscape In 2010 by Neg Norton

1. Reputation Management is not a new topic online. I have not discussed it much but it is something small business need to be aware of. What folks say about you online is important.  Matthew Berk of Marchex provided a nice presentation on a new program they are putting together. Below are the key points smbs should be aware of (in general).

• Local Search is a solved problem for consumers… but not small businesses (SMBs)
• SMBs are time starved and lack marketing expertise
• SMB digital footprints are fragmented, disparate, and growing without their knowledge
• Consumer reviews can dramatically affect their business

Reputation Management:
• Gives SMBs visibility into their online presence to inform marketing and operations
• Provides businesses with an information advantage
• Saves SMBs time (money) by staying on top of their digital footprint
• Identifies opportunities to take action

2. Local Content

Jeff Ferguson of Local.com spoke on website content. The key phrase or point that I walked away with was:

“As mentioned previously, be the product and service expert in the form of great content on your site, however, do it locally, not nationally. Target your content via locally relevant articles. Don’t just write about “radon”, the EPA has that covered Write about “radon in Phoenix, AZ” because that’s what your customers are looking for when they are shopping for a product or service.”

3. Social -Local Mix

Mike Boland has a nice presenation on how social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, etc is getting integrated into local search. This topic is big and probably every site or directory you go to now has the option of tweeting your info or linking your tweets to your account etc.  Like or not social media is very important and the small business should try to embrace it.

As I was going through some papers, it was brought to my attention that 2010 will mark me working in Cyberspace  for 10 years. Wow, it is hard to believe.  The actual date is sometime in June. Thus, I have spent some time reflecting on all that has happened.

It amazes me on all what I have done and learned online, the people I have met and worked with, the places I have gone. Has it been worth the time? Yes.  It has been very interesting to see how the Internet has evolved and continues to evolve each year.

I looked back at some of my earlier web work and seems so mundane. I have come a long way since 2000. LOL!

I won’t go into a whole long sappy reflection but a few important points that I have concluded:

1. The Internet is constantly changing itself.  What worked in 2000 will not necessarily cut it today. There are some fundamental concepts/ideas/practices that were important in 2000 that are still today.
2. Because of point #1, you cannot just sit around, you also need to be changing and working to “keep up” with the system.
3. A long term outlook is best. By trying to see the whole picture and developing an appropriate strategy, one should be able to “survive” online. (Remember the turtle beat the hare.)
4. When you need help or guidance, get it. Don’t be shy. LOL

Nothing really earth shattering here…Just some simple advice and encouragement to continue moving forward.  The Internet is a major part of everything these days and I do not see it simply going away.  Small business can do a lot online if they approach it properly.

My goals for this year? Last another year… LOL.

• I really want to continue helping small businesses maximize their online visibility.
• Continue blogging, tweeting, etc
• Put on a conference on local search marketing aimed toward smbs
• Make it to a conference or two

Ok enough reflection…back to work!

If you are a small business and want to “run” your own website, I would recommend using wordpress. When I discuss this with clients, I get a lot of curious looks. Wordpress is simply a content management system (CMS). Now there are many options out there for CMS, so if Wordpress is not your cup of tea, take a look at some of the other options.

The idea of using Wordpress for a small business site is nothing new. A few other articles on the subject are:

Don Campbell’s  Why Use Wordpress to Power Your Small Business Website and then a case study he report on.

Tim Conley’s 11 Reasons To Use Wordpress For Your Business Website and his video tutorial.

If you read these articles, you should come away with the notion that using Wordpress can help you control your website more and help with your local search marketing.  Bottom line.

I have used wordpress to build a number of sites for local small business, with good results. The main reason I have used it is so that. the small business owner can control his content. Using a CMS, definitely allows a small business owner with little web experience the ability to add, edit, delete information quickly and easily.

Another aspect that I like about using wordpress, it allows the visitor to leave a comment, question, rave, etc for the small business. Interacting with your visitors/customers/clients is a very important component in doing business here in 2009 and beyond.

The SEO aspect of wordpress is great. There are so many components that one can employ to help the site with search engine visibility, geotargeting, keywords, you name it.

A word of caution, do not think that if you build/use wordpress for your site, it will magically appear #1 in Google. You need to make sure you set it up and use it properly!  I can get you started off on the right foot but it is your responsiblity to follow up but adding content, responding to comments, questions, adding links etc.  It take a little bit of time but as I always say, time spent marketing online is well worth it!

“When a user visits 8coupons.com, the map on the homepage will automatically populate the Top 8 most popular deals based on his or her IP address. This ensures that anyone who visits the site will see the deals that are most relevant to them specifically.  The Top 8 deals will change dynamically as the user moves the map around to different locations, zooms in on a specific street, or narrows down the deals by sub-categories such as restaurants, entertainment, beauty & spas, services and shopping.”

From reviewing their website, it looks to be a pretty cool service. I checked for coupons in my neck of the woods and really did not see any, so I am assuming it will take some time to filter down to the small markets.

Greg Sterling also commented about 8coupons on his site, so you might want to check it out. Greg did say (and I agree)  “Coupons, wither mobile or online only, are extremely popular and successful as a marketing tool with consumers. It’s also one of the few forms of mobile advertising that consumers are highly receptive to.”

Here are some of Andrew’s articles:

Social Local Search Panel

NBC Everywhere – Brian Buchwald

Venture Capital Funding for Local Search

Kelsey Group Local Media Forecast

Local SEO Tools, Tricks & Strategies

Kenshoo Local Launches

Panos Bethanis of DirectoryM

Jeff Ferguson of Local.com

Q. What is guiaslocal.com?

A.  GuiasLocal.com is a new, non-yellow page, bilingual start-up that connects consumers to major U.S. cities and millions of businesses.  Guias Local translated in English means “Local Guides” (a logical name for Hispanics and search algorithm when searching locally).  The primary language of GuiasLocal.com is Spanish with a secondary language in English.  Currently GuiasLocal.com, is the largest bilingual, non-yellow page in the United States.

Q. What is its mission?

A. Our mission is to change Local search and offer Hispanics a new way to search.  With so many English language local search companies in the mix, we feel we can add value to an emerging market.

Q. You have just gotten beta in El Paso, what is the timeline for other cities?

A.  On Monday, December 7th, we will be launching our second version of Beta for El Paso, based on feedback from consumers and businesses.  This version offers more in regards to search and features.
Our full launch of our 200 major U.S. cities is scheduled for early 2010.  This version will include additional enhancements to GuiasLocal.com including white labels, private labels, and mobile versions.  We will be adding additional cities growing quickly.

Q. Are you looking at producing any iPhone or Blackberry mobile apps or site for the directory?

A. Mobile versions of GuiasLocal.com are currently in development.  As more Hispanics adapt to mobile applications faster than non-Hispanics, mobile apps are a top priority for GuiasLocal.com.  Our mobile versions will offer easy navigation and a fast search.

Q. Are there any other bilingual local search directories out there?

A.  There are no other bilingual, non yellow page, nationwide, local searches in the U.S.  There is a yellow page company named Seccion Amarilla Usa, a Telmex company, which offers results in two languages.  Yellow page companies tend to focus on print and not on the Internet or mobile applications.  Our enhanced version of GuiasLocal.com will offer our consumers an easy to use local search in two languages as well, GuiasLocal.com offers businesses the opportunity to reach consumers with various levels of advertising available at a significantly reduced rate as compared to yellow page companies.

Q. Why should small business be concerned with bilingual listings?

A. Hispanics are the largest growing minority in the United States.  As well, given  that  almost  half  of Hispanics  speak  only Spanish  at  home,  products  that  offer easy  directions  and  a  bilingual  user  interface will  gain  faster  adoption.   What’s more, one-third  of  Hispanics  feel  that  Spanish-language  Web  sites  enhance  their  user experience — a clear message for online retailers and marketers.  Why not offer the consumer the opportunity to search in both languages?  GuiasLocal.com offers Hispanics a choice, their choice of which language to search in.

Q. How can a business get listed in your directory?

A. Businesses can either contact GuiasLocal.com directly to place their business in our search.  Upon launch, we will offer a business submission where the business can add all of their information via GuiasLocal.com as well as manage their listing.  This will be available in early 2010 with our full launch.

Q. Where do you see local search marketing going in the next year or so?

A.  Local search marketing is growing at a rate of 17 percent according to Forrester Research.  GuiasLocal.com knows the true value is in becoming a brand and an information provider not just a local search.  We are currently working on this with: Private label (powered by GuiasLocal.com), Apps, API’s, licensing, desktop, mobile, and business packages.

Q. Anything else you would like to add?

A. We recently added dotcom veteran, Tom Herman, to our board who has been guiding GuiasLocal.com strategically in our money raising efforts. You may remember Tom from the movie, Startup.com. The film followed e-commerce website govWorks.com and its founders, Tom and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, from 1999-2000 as the Internet bubble was bursting. Under their leadership, govWorks raised $60 million in venture financing from firms such as the Mayfield Fund, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, the New York City Investment Fund, Hearst Corporation, Sapient Corporation and Vignette Corporation.  Tom brings over 15 years of start-up experience leading technical strategy, software architecture, fund raising and mergers and acquisitions of technical assets.

Twitter: We are the most followed Hispanic brand on Twitter World Wide.

–Thanks for that info George on Guiaslocal.com.  Look forward to seeing how your site grows and develops.

Guide to Resources for Starting a Business by Daniel Kehrer provides a nice overview of resources needed to start a business. Now if you already have a business, this could be a nice reminder of what is out there. Remember we alll need help now and then.

On the aspect of running an online business:

If I Were Launching a New Small Biz Web Site Today is a great article by Matt McGee. Matt does not discuss the issues involved in setting up a website…

“Either way, the hard work is only beginning when your web site is done. That’s when the marketing and promotion kicks in. How would you do that? How would you spread the word about your new small business and web site?”

Matt provides a 3 month overview of what to do online to market your business. Matt provides ideas, examples, and estimate of costs. Overall it is a great article for your review.  Matt sums it up nicely when he states,

“Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for small business marketing”

Costs and fees are very important to the small business owner. As you surf the web, you will find that costs/fees will vary dramatically from site to site.   Matt McGee put together another great article Small Business SEO: Costs, Expectations & Realities . This should be a must read for everyone. Matt essentially created a “part 2″ to the original article that appeared on Small Biz Trends,  Practices of Top SEO Companies for Small Businesses.

Matt works to provide answers to the questions,  “But what about the cost of small business SEO? What should a small business expect to pay when hiring an SEO consultant?”

Costs for SEO can vary but it is important to have a basic idea on what you are looking at.

Final thoughts:  Hanan Lifshitz, CEO at Palore worte a nice article back in August, What Is The Potential For Growth In SMB Online Marketing? Hanon concludes, “the answer is a resounding “Yes”, and further, the growth opportunity in online marketing for SMBs is significant, and “No”, the market is still far from being saturated.”

I agree with Hanan, there are plenty of opportunities for small business to advertise online and to help spread the word about their business or service, They simply need to get off their butts and do it!

“ILM:09 focuses on the rapid innovation in local online, search and mobile – the Web’s “last frontier.” BIA/ Kelsey projects that these areas will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue.”

Check out the:

List of speakers

Schedule of talks

List of sponsors

Right now it does not look like I will be able to attend   I will cover what I can from here. If you want to learn more about local search marketing, this is the conference to attend.

Some interesting points:

A. Economic and Business Outlook:

47.3 percent of merchants disagree or strongly disagree with the statement “The worst effects of the recession are behind us.” 23.2 percent of merchants believe that the worst of the recession’s effects are behind us and 29.6 percent neither agree nor disagree.

B. Holiday Outlook

68.3 percent of respondents expect holiday sales to decline or remain relatively the same in 2009 versus 2008

C. Marketing:

47.7 percent of merchants expect their marketing expenditures to remain stable over the next three months, while 26.6 percent expect to increase marketing spend and 25.7 percent expect to cut marketing expenditures

D. Current U.S. Administration:

When asked if the current U.S. Administration is doing enough to help small businesses, nearly three quarters of merchants responded negatively. Only 10.1 percent think the current administration is doing enough.

Below is one graph Kevin provided that I thought was very telling.

From personal experience, I definitely can agree with the results here. Small business have been effected by recent economic activity but this should be a time to act not react. Online marketing represents an affordable and effective means to get your message out there. Remember you are looking long term- build your presence, work on it, and be consistent. Also think outside the box.  Good luck and keep your chin up!

Dominating Local Searches on Google

First you need to do basic search engine optimization on every page of your website.  Next build optimized pages for your major local keywords and include semantically related phrases on those pages.  Talk to Larry about getting this done for your site.

Next, set up a Google Local Business listing so your business can show up in the Google Maps local results box.  Fill it out completely.  Add the videos, pictures and get reviews from your customers.  You should be putting almost as much effort into this one tool as you do for initially optimizing your website–it’s that important.

Your goal is to get your main website (your money site) into the top 3 organic search results before you start on the next steps.  Doing everything at once will dilute your efforts.  I’ll say it again.  Make sure you are ranking in the top 3 of your ten most important keywords before proceeding.

The next step is to get as many double listings as possible.  To get a double listing, optimize two or more pages on your site for the same keyword.  With a double listing for a geo-targeted keyword, Google frequently returns 8 organic search results instead of the normal 10.  That means you need to work to own at least the remaining 7 results.

You’re going to build a content network using Squidoo, Hubpages, Youtube, Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous.  There are more, but you’ll start here.  You or your SEO will have used some or all of these sites to create some links to your main website to get it to rank.

Now, we want the sites in our content network to start ranking for our major keywords so we have to do all the same steps we take to rank our main site to get each of these pages to rank.  See the diagram for a simplified outline of what your content network will look like.

In the Content Network Snowflake you’ll see your main website in the middle surrounded by support sites that in turn are supported by auxiliary sites. Each of these sites are content sites that reinforce the relevancy and authority of each other. What you don’t see in this diagram are the inbound links that support each of these sites.  This is nothing new in SEO, but it is new for the purpose of ranking multiple content sites for the same keyword to prevent competitors from ranking.

The reason we are doing all this is to take up as many available organic search results as possible.  Don’t allow weak competitors to show up next to you in the search engines.  This is the only place I know of where some good ol’ fashioned elbow grease will keep your competitor’s ads (search listing) away from your ads.

In all of your content on your content network, you need to have conversion tools in place.  This will include links to free reports, email opt-in boxes where possible, phone numbers, contact forms, your business location and any other way you can think up to get people to leave your content network and connect with your business.

Being better and smarter will pay off in you dominating page one of Google.  Once you have control, visitors will have no choice, but to choose you.

I know this was a lot to throw at you and I left out a lot of details on how to do local search engine optimization, but please feel free to ask questions in the comments and Larry and I would be happy to answer them.

About the author:  Tim Conley is a local marketing blogger in Phoenix, AZ and has consulted with over 200 companies from solopreneurs to software companies with 250+ employees.  Go to Tim’s blog to get more local online marketing insights at LocalMarketingMastery.com.

What if there was a way for you to get more than the average 50+% of visitors from a number one Google ranking?

I don’t know about you, but I really dislike paying a lot of money to advertise my business (or that of my clients) only to have my direct competitor’s ad show up right next to mine. Every directory that you’re business is listed in also has your direct competitors, too. In most advertising venues that get a lot of “eye balls”, you’re going to pay to show up next to your competitor’s ad. This, frankly, stinks.

But there is a new way to market your company that keeps your competitors at bay. But first let me give you some background knowledge first.

Local Search Engine Optimization

Google and other search engines want to offer searchers relevant results so that the searcher keeps coming back to their search engine. Since you are reading this article on Local Biz Bits, you have probably heard about search engine optimization a time or two. SEO is the process of manipulating content on a website and on other websites to get top search results. I’m not going to go into the mechanics of SEO or I would be cranking out a book and Larry is probably thinking this article is a bit too long already.

As local business owners, we have a window of opportunity in the search engine game. The reason I say we have just a window is that large national companies are just now waking up to the power of local search and only about 50% of small businesses have websites. Of the small businesses who have websites, most have nothing more than an electronic business card that is lost in the wilderness called the Internet.

Right now you can use search engine optimization to out compete big corporations and your local competition on all your local keyword search phrases and your brand phrases. But here is what is so amazing…you can dominate those local phrases to the point where your competition won’t show up on the first page of the search results—you can own the top ten.

There are two exceptions to you owning all of page one of Google and those are Google’s Lucky 10 (or soon to be 7 in all markets) Local Results box at the top of searches that have geographic modifiers and in the sponsored ads at the top and right. To dominate these you have to do some black hat techniques and I don’t recommend you try them because getting delisted by Google won’t help your business any.

At the time this screenshot was taken, this fitness trainer owned the entire page for his city. The only place he didn’t have a listing was in the right hand sponsored links. You can see he even got two double listings.

(part 2 tomorrow)…

Thanks

Well if you remember, I set up a fantasy baseball league earlier in the year. Thankfully that league and the main baseball season is over. It was a terrible year for my NY Mets and my fantasy team I am now looking forward to the NY Giants and the NY Knicks seasons. My last team the Florida State Seminoles….well it appears their season is pretty much over at 2-4. There is always beer. LOL

Well here are the results to the SEM09 season:

1. Dial9 4LongDistance -Steve Meyer
2. Canseco’s Link Juice -Gib Olander
3. SEO’Brien- Paul O’Brien
4. New England Pilgrims- Tim Dineen
5. Moustache Rides – Bob Leland
6. Boston Hard Heads – Ben Saren
7. Baron’s Bombers – Michael LeBarron
8. Hounds- Tim Coleman
9. The Metros – yours truly
10. Disastros – Mike Belasco

Congrats to Steve and Gib you did pretty good for the 2nd year in a row!