I am putting together some posts and will get back into the swing next week.  I hope everyone in the US has a great July 4th and takes some time to remember how fortunate we are to live in the United States of America. It is not perfect place but we are free. 

For those not familiar, each Alltop site as like a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. Each AllTop site is a collection of all the “top stories” for that particular themre or topic.  It looks like a pretty cool site.

Specially thanks to Michael Jensen of SoloSEO.com and CityMarketer.com

David did a great job putting together this survey and is well worth your time! 

The folks over at Palore.com crawl the Web to identify which local businesses advertise online, where they advertise, when, and how much they pay for their ads.  Periodically I will be posting some of their research data.

Today post focused on whether Boston restaurants and NYC night clubs advertise on a single site* or on multiple sites. (By “single site”, they mean that the advertiser has elected only to advertise on one site - not that only one site is the preferred choice of all “single site” advertisers)

 This is very interesting data and definitely shows that these businesses can and should probably increase their on-line advertising.

“CitySquares.com, the premiere hyper-local search site serving Boston and its metropolitan area, is expanding into all of New England and the greater New York City area. Beginning June 13, the number of local businesses featured on the CitySquares.com website will number over 1.5 million—a 2400% increase over its current offering.”

After reading the release, I shot Ben and email with a few more questions:

Q. Ben, why is CitySquares expanding? 
A. Based on the successes we’re having in greater Boston, we feel that we’ve accomplished the  key objectives and goals we’ve set for ourselves and now we’re ready to start applying those lessons to a broader geographic region. Furthermore, we’ve heard calls for CitySquares from communities throughout New England, and because we’ll continue to focus our sales and marketing efforts within greater Boston, there is little reason not to expand into those communities.

Q. How will the website(s) be set up?  Will folks will go to CitySquares.com and then select their city/state or will there be individual sites for each location?
A. That’s right. There will be a home page that will feature the states and regions, and you can drill down from there. But as it is today, you’ll still be able to find city/town/neighborhood home pages. We’re just adding other layers on top of this: states and their regions.

Q. For those not familiar with CitySquares, can you tell them how much is costs and what do they get with a business profile?
A. Our retail pricing for a Deluxe Business Profile is $1200/yr. However, each and every business in our market is listed for free, and that gives them a search engine optimized basic profile. For a fixed price they can upgrade to a Deluxe Profile which gets them lots more.

Then we have other products we can include in the profile like an online merchant video and Constant Contact newsletter services. Advertisers are then able to login and make changes to their profile, see traffic statistics and more. They also some pretty fantastic customer support, and access to other offline campaigns and products we provide.

Q.  How does CitySquares fare against some of the other more established, nationally based hyperlocal sites?
A.  I can’t name any nationally based or more well established hyperlocal sites. The only hyperlocal sites I know of are metro focused or regionally focused and they’re not here in New England. Of the nationally established local search players and city guides, however, specifically those who are here in metro Boston, the only company we compete against for SMB advertisers is Citysearch, and frankly, their value proposition helps us with ours.

Q. Finally,  where do you the future of hyperlocal going?
A. I can’t say. The concept of “hyperlocal” is so nascent and it means different things to different people. To me, hyperlocal is simply about providing relevant content in a relevant local context, whether its news, events, citizen journalism, or local business data.

To me, hyperlocal is my neighborhood in Boston. To others, hyperlocal might be their county. Ultimately, however, I think hyperlocal will find its way to mobile. That said, I think that’s really the future of all things local/hyperlocal.

Thanks Ben, good luck with the expansion and let us know how it goes!

A few months back, Mike Blumenthal of Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local Search  posed the question, “As we move forward to what I call the age of the iPhroid with who knows what transactional and social capabilities, does Local need to be held to a higher standard to “truly” succeed and play a trusted role in our lives?” and asked a number marketers what their thoughts. Below are links to the various responds:

Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Danny Sullivan and Chris Silver Smith Respond
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Ahmed Farooq Responds
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Bill Slawski Responds
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Matt McGee Responds
Does Local need to be held to a higher standard? Greg Sterling Responds

This is a very good set of articles. Local search is a growing search marketing technique and the search engines are working constantly to improve their local search results. Local search is not perfect but it is getting better. From the articles above, is there one quote that summarizes them all or one line that really tells the story? Not really.  All are worth your time reading and will help you get a better idea of what local search results should/need/current provide to its users.

Q. Tell the readers a little about yourself and your background.
A. Most of my experience has been in advertising sales and small business development. I’ve helped start several companies here in the Southern California area over the past 20 years. I’ve also taught classes and provided seminars on small business advertising for marketing students, entrepreneurs, and small businesses at USC, UCLA , LA City College, and Los Angeles Trade Tech College. I founded and served as the CEO of  Ivenue.com   from 1992 to 2000, was Executive Sales Director for GoSmallBiz.com from 2000 to 2005 and I’m currently an Interactive Sales Manager for LA.com and The Los Angeles Newspaper Group .

Q. What is SanGabe.biz?
A. SanGabe.biz is an online resource center and promotional tool published by the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group that allows local business owners to access vital business information and connect with local customers. The website enables business owners to get their message and marketing out to an online audience easily and effectively target local customers.

Q. Why was SanGabe.biz created?
A. After visiting with many local businesses, it became clear that many of them were having challenges getting their businesses on-line. They knew they needed to be marketing themselves on-line but didn’t know where to start. SanGabe.biz. was created to provide an easy-to-use solution for local businesses to access vital business information and connect with local customers on-line. The site also allows our newspaper group to reach out and establish relationships with local businesses who may have never advertised with the newspaper before.

Q. How can this business center help small local business?
A. Using technology from ShowMeLocal.com , the business center makes it easy for business owners to put their content online with simple tools that anyone can use regardless of Internet development experience. Business owners can use SanGabe.biz to publicize coupons and promotions, put up photos, general business info, job listings, and contact information. Users of the site can also utilize blogs to keep in touch with their customers and solicit feedback directly from customers through their SanGabe.biz listing. The site also allows business owners to form networks with one another and share customer resources.

Q. Where do you see local search marketing going in the near future?
A. I see local search being powered more by local content within niche verticals in the near future. Quality local content will attract quality local consumer searches and generate higher local search ad revenue.  I also think we’ll see more efficient CPA models evolve as opposed to current CPC models.

Q. Where do you see offline marketing such as yellow pages, newspapers going?
A. Offline yellow pages and newspapers may become more niche oriented. Yellow pages might become more like local guides for different sectors dining etc. Newspapers will start publishing more specialized publications for local regions and neighborhoods. Both will have heavy interaction with on-line components.

Thanks Dan for your time.

SanGabe.biz has just set up a press release over at PRWeb

I have worked with Nick; he and his company do fine work. In addition to Brick Marketing, Nick runs a number of informative marketing blogs (see below).

As I am always looking for new info and services dedicated to local search, I decided to quiz Nick on the new service:

Q.  Could you tell my readers a bit about you and Brick Marketing?
A.  Actually everything you need to know is on the site  :o)

Q.  What is your new local service?
A.  Our service helps small businesses save time and money by letting us get their business listed in 7 top local search engines. Then each month we re-submit their site to these engines and make sure they remain listed in each of these local search engines.

Q.  Why do you think local search marketing is important for a small business?
A.  It is very important because local search marketing is much more cost effective than traditional offline local marketing and advertising.

Q.  Where do you see local search going in the near future?
A.  The future of local search engine marketing is a full intergration of social marketing and web 2.0+ features including the customer review systems that many local website currently have.

Q.  You mention to me, a special for the LocalBizBits readers?
A.  Yes I did, we can give your readers, when they sign up, 1 month for free. They can contact me for details.

Thanks Nick. Getting your website listed in the local search engines should be your top priority. So if you want some help, free feel to contact Nick and his crew at Brick Marketing.

Click here for the official press release on this service.

===============
Nick’s blogs:
Search Engine Optimization Journal
Local Advertising Journal
Pay Per Click Journal
Social Marketing Journal
Blog Marketing Journal
Email Marketing Journal
Online Publicity Journal

The Ten Commandments of Online Marketing for Small & Local Businesses by David Mihm is a great piece on what small business need to do with their website.

Some of what he covers is:

research keywords
create good content
build website simply
link freely
list contact info on all pages…head over to his article for the rest.

Another good overview is Local search Optimization 101: get Found by Ian Lurie. I have been referring to his web site quite bit recently-excellent site of information. This is a nice step by step post on how to get started in the major local search engines.

As always, if you have any questions about get listed, please zip me an email!

I came across two articles that I think address this issue really well.  In Marketing, There Are No Guarantees by Ian Lurie of Conversation Marketing, is nice post that is short and sweet and to the point. “In this business, anyone who guarantees results is sneaky at best. There’s fine print somewhere. A Internet marketer can no more guarantee the results of a campaign than predict the weather.”

Small business owners need to understand this. A good Internet marketer will explain what he will do and how but really won’t (shouldn’t) promise the world since things change so much with the search engines.

The other component small business owners have “issues with” are the costs involved.  My associate Andrew Shotland, has put together a nice piece on The True Cost of SEO. Andrew lists some of the things to keep in mind when hiring an SEO person.

Andrew hits the nail on the head:

“While SEO can provide an amazing ROI, there still are costs associated with it — and they can add up….Even if they don’t know exactly what they are going to recommend, a good SEO consultant, like a good hair stylist, should have an idea of where they are going before they start.”

Take a few minutes to review these articles.

I know the reason is money but I think hotels could set up their own local portal and then get local merchants to advertise on it (thus covering the cost).  Same would go for the airports. This would seem to be like a win-win. Travelers are natural local searchers!

Well it is nice to be home again and once I get caught up, I will begin posting again!

Below are a few of the features that Yokl’d provides users:

• Build a personal list of favorite businesses for reference and sharing amongst peers
• Discover great businesses that are constantly being added by the Yokl’d community
• Rank local businesses across multiple categories with the simple 1-click voting process
• Interact and follow Friends & Family to get “Best Of” recommendations
• Post, review and rank positive or negative comments for each listing
• And a lot more…

Yokl’d provides aspects of social networking and business ranking not seen in other top local search sites such as Yelp! and CitySearch. Whether you need to find a great restaurant for a night out on the town or a new hair stylist, Yokl’d is quickly becoming the premier solution for the discriminating consumer, business traveler or weekend connoisseur.

(This update was provided by Jay Mallinckrodt)  Thanks Jay!

Her question to me was “who to use?”  She had spoken to a number of SEO companies and got a variety of ideas/services/prices and was not sure which to use.  (I could have said me, but I was not going there.)  I told her that there is no “industry standard” for SEO and that you are going to get a variety of answers.  I warned her against anyone who guarantees results overnight.

Finding someone to do SEO can be hard to do. If you can’t find someone you know and trust to recommend someone then you need to do some research.

[Check out a post over at Paul Jahn's LocalMN Blog: Search Engine Marketing Firm Gets $100,000 Fine - What to Look for in a Search Marketer.]

For those who would like to learn more about on-line marketing, I recommend you read, Converstaion Marketing, Common Sense Internet Strategies by Ian Lurie.  Ian does a nice job providing down to earth info and comments regarding on-line marketing strategies.

Ian has also written an excellent book, Converstaion Marketing, An Internet Marketing Strategy That Works.

The article I wanted to draw your attention to is The Internet Marketing List: 59 Things You Should Be Doing But Probably Aren’t

This is a great list of things to check over yourself or things to ask your web designer or SEO person. If they know anything, they should be able to answer and explain to you anything on this list.

As I have always said, knowledge is power. Educate yourself as best you can; that will be your best bet when trying to evaluate someone to help you.

Q. When I searched for my business, could not find it, why?
A. In order to be found within our listings you would have to either be included in the Acxiom database or opted into a ThinkLocal listing directly from our site or through some of our other submission channels with Network Solutions. Right now we provide two primary methods of finding business listings. We have a keyword search for users to enter in phrases like ‘pizza’ or ‘lawyers’ and get a set of results back based off of our algorithm. Our second type of search is the business name search that allows you to search for specific businesses if you are already familiar with their name.

We have some exciting new developments that will be released in the next month. We are focusing on the presentation of all of the local information that we have and putting it together in a much more user friendly manner. Our homepage, search results, and business profile pages will all have new designs and layouts that are geared towards usability and ensuring we are highlighting the information people come to look for from our site. The search results page in particular will have a cleaner look while at the same time offering users more functionality for finding the business information they are looking for. It will be easier than it ever was before to find local business information using our website. So stay tuned to the site over the next month, we will be rolling out some exciting changes in April.

Q. Why should a small business use ThinkLocal?
A. A small business should use ThinkLocal as piece of their overall, online marketing puzzle. Getting listed on our website isn’t going to be the end all marketing solution for your small business, but it does play an important role in increasing your online visibility. Driving traffic and getting more eyes to your business information is essential in helping your business to succeed. The level of targeting that you can achieve through local search and local business listings, such as the options we have on ThinkLocal, provides small businesses with a captive audience who is more likely to convert into a phone call, a store visit, or even a sale. Moreover, our clients have access to statistic reports that show how many times their business listing is being viewed by our users. Plus, for those with Enhanced listings, we give them additional reports on how many clicks their listing received as well as what keywords brought up their listing. That type of information can help any business determine what phrases they should target to drive the most relevant visitors to their business.

In addition, a business listing on our site is a great way for brick and mortar businesses to take that first step to having an online presence. The majority of small businesses do not have a significant online presence, if one at all. Signing up for one of our Standard or Enhanced listings and customizing your business profile page is a simple way for these businesses to start exploring the online space and hopefully get leads to grow their business. Being powered by Network Solutions also sets us apart from nearly ever other local search because we have all of the end to end solutions to help small businesses get online. Getting a business listing on ThinkLocal is an important step, but our small business clients can also benefit from the online solutions we offer whether it is a domain name, website hosting, design, or online marketing.

Q. Where do you see local search going?
A. Local search is an exciting space right now and will continue to be in the forefront of where search is heading. When the internet started, it was thought of as a means to access and communicate information all over the world. While we still have that ability, people now are using the power of the internet to see what is going on in their environment, where they live. More and more people will want instant access to the businesses, events, weather, and other happenings in their local area. And with the increasing mobile device capabilities, that instant access is becoming more widespread than ever. As a result, the importance of quality local search will only continue to grow and play a role in the way our society and business behaves.

Thanks for your time Julia.

Q.Tell us a little about yourself.
A. I began my experience in the internet industry working for MonsterCommerce, an Ecommerce company that is now part of Network Solutions. My background is focused mainly in online marketing and product development, particularly with search engine and directory related properties. Search and online marketing fascinate me because they are constantly evolving and changing, making this industry a challenging but exciting space to be in.

Q. What is ThinkLocal?
A. ThinkLocal is a local search engine that has over 17 million business listings in addition to local weather, maps and directions, local events, city spotlights, and business reviews.

We introduced the site in April 2006 with the goal of providing a good launching pad to getting online for many small businesses that do not yet have an online presence, which is a large percentage of the business population. It can also be an option for businesses that are already online to come, sign up for one of our listings, and enhance their online visibility.

Q. What costs are involved? (Standard vs. Enhanced listing?)
A. There is no cost to obtain a Standard listing on ThinkLocal, it is completely free. With a Standard listing you have the ability to manage your business information, including adding captions and a long description of your business and services. Additionally, your listing will show up among the regular search results for relevant searches to your business and category.

We offer an option for businesses to increase their visibility in our search results by purchasing an Enhanced listing. With an Enhanced listing, you have all of the same benefits as a Standard listing; however, your listing will show up in our featured sections of our search results. Business owners can select their package based off of the geo targeting and category options they choose to advertise within. For example, a plumber in Saint Louis who only services Saint Louis City may only want his enhanced listing to display for plumbing related searches in Saint Louis City to maximize the effectiveness of his ad. We give businesses those options to choose what target audience they want to impact with their ads. You can find more information about our Advertising options by going here.

Q. Do you submit info the business data anywhere?
A. At this time we do not submit our business information to any additional search engines or directories. Our goal is to get our small business clients as much traffic and visibility as possible, so working with other local directories or search engines is something we may look at in the future. However right now, our focus is providing the best experience for users we can on ThinkLocal.com.

Q. Reverse Yellow Pages -what is that?
A. Reverse Yellow Pages is basically a search that provides the ability to find business information, essentially in the opposite way in which people tend to think of finding businesses. Say, for example, you only have the phone number of a business but not the address, or you have the address but cannot remember the name of the business. A Reverse Yellow Page lookup will enable you to put in the phone number or address of a business and find the listing you were looking for with all of the information you need. It is simply another tool for us to offer to assist our users in locating the business information they are looking for.

to be continued….

ParkingHunter.com has created a marketplace for monthly parking spaces and currently has 2500+ parking spots available. The goal is to connect car-less home owners that have empty driveways, with motorists who want affordable parking. The service is at no cost for users to advertise their parking spots. In addition to renting, users can also buy and sell parking real-estate.”

I zipped over to the web site and this is not a bad idea. The site is in beta but I like what they are trying to do.  I recently went to Atlanta and was looking on Mapquest for parking lots in the city. So if you are curious, pop over to the site and take it for a spin.  Future plans, they say,  are being developed to allow for hourly parking and mobile reservations.

note: I did contact them for more information but they did not return my email.

Q. Tell us a little about your site and services.
A. mobileStorm has pioneered the concept of multi-channel marketing for the small-to medium-sized business. We provide a turnkey, hosted email and digital messaging platform backed by world-class support and expert digital marketing services.

We have created the most complete digital marketing solution available, enabling our customers to reach their audiences via email, text (mobile) messaging, voice messaging or fax broadcast from a single provider. Our service is web-based, and client can sign up and send their first campaign in less than 10 minutes.

Q Where do you see email/direct marketing going in the future?
A. Presence marketing. This is where I get emails, SMS messages etc.. that is related to my presence or location. For instance if I travel to New York, my usual Tuesday morning ticketmaster email wouldn’t have events in So Cal, but in Manhattan. 

Q. How can local business use email marketing to help promote themselves? 
A. Let’s take a restaurant business for example. They should be asking on their comment cards for someone’s email address. In exchange for the address, the restaurant will send out offers only available from their “e-club”. They can offer last minute weekend specials, 2 for 1 drinks etc.. they can offer real coupons that can be printed out and redeemed. Email marketing is the perfect medium for local business because it is easy to build your database and inexpensive to market to it. Ever bought an add in the LA times or a 30 second radio spot? 

Q. How can one effectively email or direct market using your services without getting lost in all the spam out there?
A. It’s tough. Spammers have made it hard for legitimate marketers to get their messages into the inbox. The email inbox vendors like hotmail, yahoo, and AOL have an even harder job. They spend millions fighting spam. If their customer’s inbox is filled with spam, they will lose them, so they put very tight systems in place to fight spam. These systems aren’t perfect, legit mail gets blocked all of the time.  There is a war going on and the crazy part is that 90% of spam comes from 10 people/organizations.

Spammers are always one step ahead of everyone. The best thing a business can do is make sure they are following best practices , and working with an Email Service Provider (or ESP) like mobileStorm to ensure they have the best chance to hit the inbox. ESPs will offer things like authentication, dedicated IP addresses and whitelisting, all much needed services for email deliverability. 

Q. For a business just starting out-how can they use your services or where should they start? 
A. We built Stun! with the small business in mind. I actually wanted to make it easy enough so that my mom can use it. The first thing you do after you sign up is go through a 12 step wizard. Only one step is required, however if you do each step at the end when you log into the control panel, you will have your account set up and ready to go.

Our pricing is based upon the amount of messages someone sends on a monthly basis. We also offer a number of additional services to ensure your digital marketing success. A nice feature we recently added was a questionnaire at the beginning of our 12 step wizard. Based upon your answers we recommended services that will help your business grow.

Thanks Jared. This is a 2 part article that I am putting on the two blogs that I currently run. Part one of this article is about a number of “war stories” that I have read over the last few months, which I found to be very good. You can see which I picked at the ShowMeLocal blog.

Link Building Secrets Revealed by Top Linking Experts put together by Pole Position Marketing. You can even download a pdf file.  

No Recession For Link Building by Eric Ward

How Social Media Becomes Link Fertilizer, by Eric Ward